The Solid Waste Management (SWM) bylaws, which had been recently approved by the State government, will allow the civic body to levy service charge for door-to-door collection of waste.
This charge is different from the SWM cess that is paid along with the property tax, explained D. Randeep, BBMP’s Special Commissioner (SWM). “While the cess is for overall cleanliness of public spaces in the city, street cleaning and clearing black spots, the service charge is for delivery of a specific service,” he said.
According to the bylaws, the SWM service charge ranges from ₹200 a month for households to ₹14,000 a month for bulk waste generators. The civic body, however, will not be imposing this service charge immediately on citizens.
“First, we need to build a database of households, manner and mode of collection. That apart, we need to tighten our processes to ensure 100% door-to-door collection,” he said.
However, BBMP Commissioner B.H. Anil Kumar, told reporters that the civic body may start collecting the fee from July.
Mr. Randeep said that the bylaws should be seen in totality, as they mandate setting up of a smart control room, GPS tracking on all vehicles, collection and processing of different streams of waste, encouraging in situ composting and decentralised processing. “If any household or bulk waste generator has in situ waste processing in place, the service charge need not be collected,” he explained.
The bylaws have been notified as they were mandated under SWM Rules, 2016. Each State was expected to notify the bylaws within a year of SWM Rules 2016 coming into force. The State government had empowered the BBMP to notify the bylaws as the challenges of the city were different from other urban centres in Karnataka.
