The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) standing committee has decided not to proceed with the proposal to raise user charges for door-to-door garbage collection. The standing committee had previously rejected a proposal to increase garbage collection fees from Rs 1 per day to Rs 3 per household.
According to a report, the AMC’s policy-making body has put the proposal to raise garbage collection fees on hold.
The proposal to increase user fees was first presented to the civic body in January, when municipal commissioner Lochan Sehra proposed a fee of Rs 5 per day for each commercial property.
An official from the AMC’s solid waste management department said that the costs of fuel, garbage collection van rounds, and manpower have risen dramatically in the last three years, prompting agencies to demand a hike in user fees.
As per the reports, the solid waste management department had proposed that door-to-door garbage collection user charges for residential properties be raised from Rs 1 per day to Rs 3. It also demanded that for commercial properties the charges must be increased from the current price of Rs 2 to Rs 5 per day.
Last January, the proposal was presented to the standing committee, but no decision was taken after the opposition raised objections. Shehzad Khan, the AMC’s leader of the opposition, said that if user fees are raised, the financial taxpayers will bear the brunt of the cost.
Khan, who is also a Congress councillor from Danilimda, sent Ahmedabad Mayor Kirit Pamar a memorandum stating the same reason.
However, this isn’t the first time the standing committee has rejected a proposal to increase user fees for door-to-door collection. The executive wing of AMC attempted to raise the charges in 2018, but the standing committee rejected the proposal.