Bengaluru: There is no end to the garbage woes of the city. The civic body has failed to get garbage collection tenders off the ground over the last two years and continues to operate four landfills.
According to the city's administrators, the answer to the mess is hiking the garbage cess to meet the burgeoning operating costs.
M.K. Gunasekhar, chairman, standing committee on Taxation and Finance, BBMP, says, “Garbage management costs have been burgeoning every year, but the cess has remained unchanged. Presently, the cess collected is less than 10 per cent of the operational cost, creating a huge deficit. The proposed hike in cess is expected to generate nearly Rs. 300 crore, but this will account for only around 60 per cent of the operational cost. With the State government increasingly directing civic bodies to generate their own revenue, it will be imperative for citizens to pay for their services.”
But citizens’ groups and experts working in the space pose two moot questions: Why are the operating costs so high and why are the civic body's inefficiencies built into it? Why should citizens pay for these inefficiencies?
Kalpana Kar, member, SWM Expert Committee, BBMP, argued that no audit of the expenses incurred on garbage management has ever been conducted. “It is inexplicable that the city has spent ₹575.2 crore for garbage management last fiscal. If a proper audit is carried out, most of the expenses will be on the transport of waste to the city's outskirts and processing mixed waste,” she claimed.
The burgeoning operational costs of garbage management isn’t free of corruption scandals, the very reason why the argument by the civic body that the cess needs to hiked to meet the operational costs doesn’t hold much water.
For instance, a Technical Vigilance Cell working under the Commissioner (TVCC) of BBMP submitted an audit report in March 2015 in which bogus billing in the transport of garbage was pegged at ₹631 crore during 2013-14 and 2014-15.
While no action has been initiated over the report, the civic body has sought a hike in the cess to meet expenses.
Not just corruption, the civic body's failure to implement segregation at source and decentralised garbage management system at the zonal level has only added to the transportation cost to landfills on the city's outskirts. Why should citizens pay for the inefficiencies of the civic body, argues Citizen Action Forum, an association of over 110 RWAs.
V. Ravichandar, member, BBMP Restructuring Committee, finds it odd that BBMP continues to look at garbage as a cost overhead rather than a source of income, as is the norm across the world. “Constraint is the mother of innovation and rationalisation in any business. If the city starts paying for all the irrational expenses that BBMP makes, there will be no incentive whatsoever for the civic body to cut costs. This will only lead to further inefficiencies rather than correct them,” he argued.
When we handle our waste, why pay cess?
Now apartment complexes, commercial establishments and bulk generators are expected to take care of the waste they generate in situ. Most apartment complexes have now roped in private agencies to process waste. Most of them have installed composters, incurring both capital and operational costs. Why should such property owners pay garbage cess?
In fact, the SWM Expert Committee, BBMP had recommended waiving off of garbage cess for such properties.
“It is unfair to expect apartments and other bulk generators to spend money to process waste and continue to pay cess,” said N.S. Ramakanth, member of the Expert Committee.
