Former Union Minister and ex-city MP Pawan Kumar Bansal has strongly condemned the fixing of garbage collection charges by the Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh.
Bansal has also criticised the MCC for hiring private companies for door to door garbage collection and burdening the people with extra charges.
The Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has recently finalised the monthly door-to-door garbage collection charges for household and commercial properties. The MC has decided that EWS houses would pay Rs 50 while lIG, cheap houses and those below 5 marla would have to pay Rs 80.
The houses between 5 marla and one canal in the city will have to pay Rs 100 for ground floor, first and second floor households will have Rs 110 and 120, respectively. Third-floor houses will have to pay Rs 130 as charges. Houses which are above one canal or above will pay Rs 250.
Commenting on this, Bansal said that the two-bin waste management scheme was launched in June by MCC. Under it, 10,000 green and blue dustbins of 12 litre capacity are to be distributed and the collection of garbage was to be carried out from door-to-door by private companies hired for the job by the MCC.
However, the MC has fixed high garbage collection charges from different categories of residential houses, shops and institutions, said he.
The former Union Minister added, “Why more charges are being levied when people are already paying house tax and sewerage cess etc. For what purpose are the proceeds there from being utilised. Isn’t the GST already taking its toll on the citizens that MCC wants to burden the citizens more in even the garbage collectionIJ”