Reiterating that they are opposed to the hike in garbage collection
charges as proposed to be imposed by the MMC last year, the SGHROA has
placed before the MMC its own fee structure for consideration of the
civic body.

Last year, the MMC had classified the hotels and
restaurants into three broad categories depending upon the size of the
establishments, and proposed to charge 80 from Category A, 60 from
category B and 20 from category C units. Earlier, when the MMC had
undertaken a similar exercise in 2007, the rates were 25, 15 and 10 for
categories A, B and C in that order.

As per the latest proposal
of the SGHROA, the garbage collection fees should not be more than 30,
20 and 10, a marginal increase from the 2007 rates. There are nearly 400
hotels and restaurants across Margao and Fatorda.

The
president of SGHROA, C P Jaggi, has questioned the MMC for targeting
only the hotels and restaurants for taxing them with the garbage
collection fees.

“Garbage is generated by gaddas, sugar cane
juice sellers, bhelpuri and pavbhaji vendors, street vendors who
liberally use plastic disposable cups/plates, roadside
fruit/vegetable/fish vendors and finally dealers of electrical
appliances who throw waste like thermocol and other packaging material
right into the rainwater drains,” Jaggi said in the letter.

The
hotel waste collection exercise that was initiated since March 2011 has
been exerting a financial burden on the already cash-strapped civic
body. The initial idea was to begin the hotel waste collection on a
trial basis and then impose garbage collection fees on the hotels once
the pitfalls were identified and the exercise streamlined. However, with
the hoteliers from the city failing to accept its fee structure for the
hotel waste collection, the MMC has been conducting the exercise
without generating any revenue for the municipality.