Residents of Bengaluru will be charged Rs 200 user fee per month by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for door-to-door collection of garbage from January 2021. The BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad, in a letter to the government, proposed to use Bescom’s (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company) infrastructure to ensure a smooth collection process. Levying the fee with the electricity bill will cause the monthly bill to inflate.
“Bescom already has a wide reach amongst domestic households and commercial establishments. Most electricity consumers are also waste generators and hence it is logistically feasible to utilise the Bescom collection machinery for this purpose,” said the commissioner explaining the rationale to availing the help of Bescom in levying the user fee.
The Commissioner also clarified that the user fee is not “garbage cess”; but Solid Waste User Fees levied for the specific service of solid waste collection from the doorstep of the waste generator, provided by BBMP.
“Bescom will collect user fees on behalf of BBMP and remit it into the BBMP account. The user fee will be charged and collected on a monthly basis, unlike the property tax, as per the sold waste management byaws 2020,” added the Commissioner.
Such monthly collection is to ensure consistent cash flow to BBMP which will help them pay their solid waste service providers and for operation and maintenance of solid waste processing plants.
The sources at Bescom said, “We are discussing the nitty-gritty of the matter with the software developers. The talks are still in the incipient stage. If need be, we will also approach the Energy Department and Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) for clearance.”