Corporation plans to collect user charges

City residents across the 100 Wards will soon have to shell out money every month to pay towards solid waste management.

Sources said that the corporation had not yet fixed the amount the residents would have to pay but was in the process of drafting the by-laws for the same.

The by-laws would form part of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 that the Union Government had framed recently.

Sources in the civic body said that the once it finalised the draft by-laws, the corporation would make it public inviting suggestions.

Thereafter it would obtain the State Government’s permission to publish the same in gazette for implementation.

The corporation’s move comes almost six years after it made a similar attempt to collect user charges under the the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

After spending around Rs. 100 crore for improving solid waste collection and management in the city, the corporation drafted by-laws for collecting user fee.

The by-laws said that the civic body would collect Rs. 10, Rs. 20 and Rs. 30 a month from houses based on the property tax.

The corporation, however, had to defer collection following opposition from Councillors.

To date, the corporation did not collect user charges.

Now the civic body was making a renewed effort, the sources said and added that this time it would do so.

MDMK’s State youth wing secretary V. Eswaran, who is fighting a case at the National Green Tribunal against the corporation, said that there was no necessity for the corporation to collect the charges. There was several other ways the corporation could raise money - the first being plugging wastages in waste collection.

The corporation would do well to also streamline the transport system for waste collection, where it was heavily losing money, he added.