COIMBATORE: Federation of Apartments Owner’s Welfare Association Coimbatore (FAOWAC) and a few other bulk waste generators, including hotels and commercial stores have appealed to the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) not to charge garbage collection fees stating all bulk waste generators are individually handling waste disposal.
Hotels, apartments, commercial stores, hospitals, supermarkets, hypermarkets, wedding halls, and other businesses which generate more than 100 kg of waste on a daily basis are categorised as Bulk Waste Generators (BWG) as per Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rule, 2016.
According to the SWM bylaw, a BWG will have to handle their waste in situ or through a private entity and dispose of them safely. In this situation, the CCMC had begun collecting garbage user fees, along with the revised property tax, from this financial year.
The garbage user charges were levied on all tax assessments, including the BWG. FAOWAC president RS Shanmugam told TNIE, “With the property tax already doubled amidst a financial crisis, charging garbage user fee when there is no such service has been rendered so far by the corporation to the apartments is adding salt to the wound.
We have been paying Rs 70 per month to a private player who collects our wastes regularly without any fuss. So, we have urged the mayor and the commissioner to intervene in this matter and waive off the garbage user fee for apartment owners.”
Similarly, a few hoteliers and commercial store owners have also echoed the same issue and have asked the civic body to exempt the garbage user fee as the BWG are taking care of their own wastes. Speaking to TNIE, CCMC Deputy Commissioner Dr M Sharmila said, “We are planning to conduct a survey to identify the total number of BWG in the city.
And garbage is not collected from all hotels. We need to bring in a change in the bylaws to drop the garbage charges for a few. So, we shall prepare a detailed report, kept in the council for passing a resolution, and will send it to the CMA for its approval. Once approved, the change will be made in the property tax payments in the TN Urbantree server and garbage fee will be dropped.”