Vijayawada Municipal Corporation bent on collecting garbage charges from July

Vijayawada: Comes July, the households and business establishments, hotels, and institutions will have to shell out user charges for the collection of garbage by the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.

In spite of protests and appeals made by the opposition parties, trade associations, common people and others not to collect the user charges for garbage collection and waste management in the city in the Covid time, the civic body is bent upon imposing the same on households and commercial establishments. The civic body has already been collecting the user charges in the six divisions as a pilot project and now going to implement the same in all 64 divisions.

According to officials, on the instructions of the State government and the policies of the Union government, the VMC has prepared a chart with details of the charges to be collected from households, commercial establishments, hotels, restaurants, educational institutions, cinema halls, function halls, marriage halls, chicken and mutton shops, wholesale and retail traders in the city.

Households will have to pay Rs 120 per month, wholesale shops Rs 200 and retailers to shell out Rs150 per month.

The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation announced that as per the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, user charges can be levied on those responsible for waste generation for its collection and safe disposal. The user fee should be in proportionate to the quantum of waste generated. Government of India has also emphasised on certain requisite preconditions for release of the Central government sponsored schemes. User charges in the city are fixed basing on the floor area of the commercial establishments, shops, shopping malls. For hospitals and clinics, user charges are based on the number of beds. For educational institutions, the charges are based on number of class rooms.

Vijayawada Municipal Commissioner Prasanna Venkatesh said collection of user charges is inevitable in the city in order to ensure proper disposal of waste generated in the city. User charges are collected every month by the VMC staff before seventh. For late payment, penalty of Rs15 will be collected from households. For household, the user charge is Rs120. Households, retail and wholesale traders constitute the maximum numbers among the user charge payers.

The VMC started has been collecting the user charges six municipal divisions as pilot project and is now ready to take a decision on implementing in all 64 divisions in the city. But, the common people and traders are opposing it stating that it is not appropriate time for collection of user charges because traders and a large number of common people are badly hit by the second wave of the Covid pandemic since April, 2021.