The Ranchi Municipal Corporation has once again started functioning arbitrarily—charging for services ironically not given. Several authorised agents have begun knocking the doors of city residents to collect user charge for door-to-door collection of garbage. However, this is happening sans any genuine proof to claim fee for the service given. To add insult to the injury there are many without authorisation to collect taxes.
The RMC has been facing severe crisis of payment to about 1600 contract labourers engaged in solid waste management that includes lifting garbage from the doorstep of all houses in all the municipal wards. There are about 40 tax collectors empanelled by the RMC to collect taxes from its command area and the urban civic body wants residents of all wards to comply with whether services are being given at doorstep or not.
The urban civic body deputed tax collectors are clueless about the sordid reality of waste collection as they are on the job without proper explanation for irregular service yet request of complete payment. But RMC officials are adamant that services have been provided even if indirectly. “We appeal the people to pay the user charge because even if someone is not collecting garbage from their door step, waste generated in their house is being cleaned by the RMC as they must be dumping it somewhere else,” said RMC’s in-charge of waste management, AK Manjhi.
Notably, non-payment to contract labourers has been the bone of contention between ward councilors and RMC officials. The payment crisis snowballed into a major controversy as the RMC failed to maintain the quality of service which agitated residents to not cooperate and pay the user charges. According to sources, RMC needs about Rs1.65-crore to keep the waste management services operational but the collection is too low to get a mention.
“The collection is very low and people simply refuse to pay user charges. We have issued notices to several buildings and establishments. We cannot maintain our services if we do not get user charges,” added Manjhi. Interestingly, the municipal body is silent over few unauthorised collectors and wash hands off those people besides expressing inability to control them.
The RMC seems to be relying over people’s intelligence for identifying unauthorized people instead of spreading awareness about ways to differentiate between right and wrong people. “We can’t do anything. If there are agents collecting tax without authorisation then I would suggest people to approach our office and report the matter to us,” said Manjhi.