MUMBAI: The BMC is planning to introduce a user fee for citizens to cover the mounting costs of solid waste collection, transportation, processing and disposal.
Civic officials TOI spoke to said that this aligns with Solid Waste Management Rules (SWM), 2016 issued by the central government. The BMC is currently revising its solid waste byelaws to incorporate provisions of the SWM Rules, which mandate a user fee.
While exact charges for Mumbai are yet to be determined, they are expected to be around Rs 100 for residential units up to 500 sq ft and Rs 500-Rs 1,000 for larger premises. The rates for commercial units is yet to be finalised, but they are likely to be higher. Other cities like Pune, Chennai, and Delhi already impose user fees, ranging from 100 for residential units to 500 for commercial establishments (see graphic).
A senior BMC officer said, “A presentation will be made before the municipal commissioner on Dec 16 after which a final decision would be taken. This would also be put out before the public for suggestions/ objections.”
Mumbai generates a massive 6,500 metric tons of waste daily which is taken largely to the Kanjurmarg dump and a small amount to Deonar. The BMC’s solid waste department (SWM) has a workforce of 43,000, of which 28,000 are permanent staff and the rest contractual labourers. For 2024-25, the department estimated an annual budget of Rs 4,878 crore of which Rs 1,575 crore is for capital expenditure and Rs 3,302 crore is for revenue expenditure.
Some activists argue that under the MMC Act of 1888, it is the BMC’s obligatory duty to manage waste. “Instead BMC must make segregation mandatory and ensure how solid waste can be composted. The SWM rules mandate it as well,” said Rishi Agarwal, director of NGO, Mumbai Sustainability Centre.
A BMC official clarified that it plans to amend the MMC act before implementing the user fee. “This provision in the act has been there since the inception when the city’s solid waste wasn’t as large as it is now. The BMC needs to consider imposing the fee as Mumbai’s total waste generation has reached a peak,” said the official. In the civic budget of 2022, the BMC had proposed a user fee for waste management, but it was not implemented.
The SWM Rules term describe a user fee as “a fee imposed by the local body on the waste generator to cover full or part cost of providing solid waste collection, transportation, processing and disposal services. All waste generators shall pay such a user fee for solid waste management, as specified in the bye-laws of the local bodies.”
Further one of the duties and responsibilities of a local authority, it states, is that it should prescribe from time to time user fee as deemed appropriate and collect the fee from waste generators on its own or through authorised agencies.
The civic body is also looking at imposing a fee as a move to boost revenue due to mounting liabilities. BMC liabilities have crossed an unprecedented Rs 2 lakh crore currently. Liabilities is what the BMC owes in the form of payments. Major projects to which this escalation is attributed to include the proposed Dahisar-Bhayander Link Road pegged at a cost of 3,304 crore, the west leg of the Mumbai Coastal Road project from Versova to Dahisar pegged to cost Rs 16,621 crore and Goregaon Mulund Link Road tunnel estimated to cost Rs 6,500 crore approximately.
