Get ready to pay user fee for generating and handing over waste to Coimbatore Corporation, for the civic body has decided to resume collection. And, get ready to pay arrears as well.
The Corporation Council in a resolution dated November 30, 2021 said it would start collecting user fee for waste generation as per the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and by-laws it had enacted based on it.
Though it was to collect the user fee from the 2017-18 financial year, it could not due to administrative reasons and because it had to discontinue the UTIS software in administration. Now the Corporation had resumed use of the UTIS software from August 2021 and therefore had decided to revive the user fee collection.
The Corporation would collect user fee as a part of property tax for residential buildings and D&O License for non-residential establishments, the Council resolution said.
A senior Corporation official said the civic body that would collect user fee from the 2017-18 financial year to the current one would do so in nine instalments. From the 2022-23 financial year it would levy the fee as a part of either property tax or D&O License. The arrears to be collected totaled Rs. 13 crore a year.
The Corporation sources said that Corporation had first made a commitment to collect user fee for waste collection to the Central Government after it had received funds under the then Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
After missing out on the commitment, the civic body once again resolved to collect charges after the Central Government framed the 2016 rules. But due to opposition from political parties the Corporation gave up the move in 2017.
For the 2017-18 financial year the Corporation had estimated collection of around ₹20 crore but it collected less than ₹1 crore, the sources pointed out and added that the poor collection was due to the political parties opposition.
The recent move to revive the user fee collection comes a few days after the Corporation asked bulk waste generators like apartments and commercial establishments to make their own arrangements to process waste.
