Anyone generating waste has to pay. While user charges for for households that generate waste will be ₹ 20 a month, it will increase to ₹ 30 for apartment units, ₹ 500 for commercial establishments and the fees will be increasing correspondingly depending on the generator.
For instance, smaller hotels will have to pay ₹750 while for five-star hotels the fee will be ₹ 5,000, ₹ 3,000 for a marriage halls and this goes up to to ₹10,000 for a hospital with more than 200 beds, per month for door-to-door collection.
This is as per the Municipal Solid Waste Management Policy released by the TS Government recently and these fees are to be revised every two years for 22 categories of waste generators. It proposes to introduce property tax rebate for bulk waste generators implementing on-site segregation and treatment facility for full quantity of waste generated. The policy claims household garbage collection across urban areas is on ‘acceptable benchmark levels’ or about 90%. However, the same cannot be said of segregation of waste, scientific disposal and even in collection of user charges. Hence, it was imperative to introduce user charges and penalties in tune with the ‘polluter pays principle’.
Claiming to be opting for a ‘circular approach’, the policy calls for greater segregation, recycling, reducing waste to landfills and earning revenue from sale of compost/recycling of material. On-site segregation and compost methods are for bulk generators like hotels, gated communities, enterprises and others spread over more than 5,000 sq. metres and generating of 100 kilos daily.
The municipal administration & urban development department has has given itself three years’ time to reach the target of ensuring that only 20 per cent of the garbage generated is let into landfills. The Government will be extending support to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to put up treatment and disposal facilities or to have a common regional landfill. Permission from Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) is mandatory if volume of waste generated everyday exceeds 5 MT per day.
Municipalities have been given three months time to identify suitable land for setting up processing and disposal facilities and incorporate the same in the master plan. Industrial estates should earmark 5% of total area for the same. ULBs have also been tasked with promoting home composting, bio-gas generation, decentralised processing of waste at community level, etc,
Waste pickers, waste dealers and bulk waste generators are to be registered. Open burning of waste is to be dealt with seriously and will attract huge fines from ₹5,000 to ₹25,000.
Further, any gathering of more than 100 persons has to ensure waste segregation at source or a penalty of ₹5,000 will be levied. For this purpose an online permit system is to be initiated. Organisers will also have to submit a waste management plan and clean-up programme after the event is over — at least three working days in advance of the event.
