Decoding BBMP's garbage fee: The case for taxing waste collection

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) decision to impose a fee for garbage collection, along with property tax, has ruffled many feathers in Bengaluru, eliciting strong reactions from various property taxpayers.

The BBMP anticipates a revenue of Rs 650-700 crore per year through this fee. It also aims to improve waste management infrastructure, including the establishment of 27 transfer stations and a material recovery facility with a daily capacity of 1,226 metric tonnes.

The fee collection system, integrated with property tax collection, has had its teething problems. While many complained that the website displayed an incorrect amount, others reported numerous glitches. Ramesh* (name changed) says his apartment collects Rs 5,000 per year to be paid to the garbage contractor for garbage clearance.

“With the BBMP’s user fee, I have to pay another Rs 1,200 per year extra,” he says. He lives in a 52-unit apartment building, which is a bulk waste generator that BBMP will charge for waste collection in future.

The BBMP has yielded to the requests and will waive the user fee for bulk waste generators who do not depend on the BBMP for waste collection, but only after the officials inspect and verify the claims.

“This will lead to an unholy nexus between garbage collectors or contractors and bulk waste generators who do not self-manage waste, says Nandini Bhat, a resident of Vidyaranyapura. She feels such inspections are challenging to carry out and will pave the way for corruption.

She says individuals who compost waste at home now have no incentive to do so. They still have to pay the fee. She thinks that, instead of a blanket fee, charging per kg of waste collected will help, if the BBMP can come up with a way to make this happen.

A senior BBMP official said that the BBMP cannot grant an exemption from user fees to independent houses and small apartments that manage their waste, as it is both impractical and prone to misuse. The option is available only to bulk waste generators, as there are only about 3,500 such large establishments that either compost the waste or hand it over to the empanelled vendors.

“The plan still has let certain bulk waste generators off the hook, in a manner which will make enforcement difficult, require ground level scrutiny and enforcement, use of private providers not under its control or supervision, allowing the same “mafia regime” as someone in charge of the city alluded to flourish further,” says R Rajagopalan, founder of Bengaluru Coalition, a citizens’ initiative.

“The notion that built-up area is a good indicator of waste generated is a bad one; household census count should have been used,” he notes.

He feels the user fee is technically not different from the SWM cess bundled with the BBMP property tax. “Instead of another line item, this should have been modified or merged,” he says.

The rationale

While many are questioning the rationale behind the fee, a senior BBMP official says that the concept of user fees is not new. The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016, introduced by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, mandate Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to collect user fees from waste generators to cover the costs of waste collection, transportation, processing, and disposal. This approach aligns with the “polluter pays” principle, the official says.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) – Urban, in its 2.0 version, emphasises the implementation of user charges as a critical component for sustainable waste management. The mission’s guidelines mandate the ULBs to notify and enforce bylaws for user charges collection, with performance metrics tied to the percentage of households and establishments from which these charges are collected. 

This system is integral to the Star Rating Protocol for Garbage-Free Cities, incentivising cities to improve their waste management practices. Officials say an NGT-appointed committee had also instructed the officials to impose a fee.

The fee, thus, is in line with these directives. In fact, this is not an isolated case. Other major cities, such as Mumbai and New Delhi, have also proposed a user fee for waste management.

Where will the money go?

The projection of an extra 650-700 crores in revenue through this user fee raises a question: How does the BBMP use the garbage budget? Is BBMP self-sufficient in managing waste? 

Apula Singh, manager of Public Finance at Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, who has analysed the BBMP budget for 2025-26, feels that without meaningful efforts to tackle waste, the allocated budget will be wasted.

“BBMP has allocated Rs 2,441 crore (12 per cent of its budget) for waste management—a 20 per cent increase since 2022-23. Nearly 30 per cent of this budget covers establishment and administrative expenses, while 60 per cent is allocated as grants to Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Ltd (BSWML),” she observes.

She adds that most of the operational costs were previously covered by state government grants, which accounted for 99 per cent of SWM’s receipts in FY 2022-23. However, state contributions have drastically reduced from Rs 330 crore in FY 2022-23 to only Rs 52 Cr in Budget 2025-26, she observes.

A cursory look at the budget details shows an allocation of Rs 850 crore for waste collection and transportation, and another Rs 486 crore for developmental works.  There is also another Rs 200 crore allocation from the state government under the Shubhra Bengaluru project. BSWML’s administrative expenses are Rs 64 crore.

The document shows the BBMP had a budget of Rs 613 crores under the head ‘Operating costs Outsourced SWM Expense - Mechanical Sweeping Machine Hiring charges’ in 2024-25. This time, it is Rs 70 crores under a different head, ‘Mechanical sweeping machine hire charges’.

‘Additional expense’

A BBMP official says that the BBMP will have an additional expenditure this year onwards. About 12000 pourakarmikas will be made permanent from May 1 onwards. Their salaries will fall under the 7th Pay Commission. The overall cost of pourakarmikas’ salaries will shoot up by about Rs 300 crore. It will be Rs 550 crore per annum. The BBMP has around 17,000 pourakarmikas on its payroll.

The BBMP Budget has already factored in this increase. Under the heading ‘Solid waste management - Establishment expenses’, the salary of outsourced pourakarmikas has declined from Rs 365 crores in the revised budget estimates for 2024-25 to Rs 105 crores in the new budget.

The staff salary has increased from Rs 37.72 crores in the revised estimates to Rs 365.48 crores in the 2025-26 budget. Overall, a budget of Rs 419.85 crores for salaries until 2024-25 will now increase to Rs 654.61 crores going forward. 

However, Apula feels that the introduction of SWM service charges appears to be a financial sustainability measure, with no proper mechanisms for citizen participation and accountability.

‘Use it meaningfully’

“While BBMP should be commended for its efforts to tackle legacy waste, it continues to heavily rely on centralised processing units and landfilling to manage its waste,” says Apula.

“In the absence of an elected council since 2020, there is no accountability of the system to citizens. A decentralised and participatory approach to waste management, ordered by the High Court in 2017, is also missing from the Integrated Solid Waste Management project being implemented by BSWML,” she highlights.

“A 5 MT Compressed Bio Gas plant takes 10-12 K sq ft of space, costs 2 Cr and could solve a ward’s wet waste needs locally for 10+ years. However, land acquisition issues, the unavailability of CA sites, and citizens’ unwillingness to allow such projects in their backyard have previously hindered such efforts. These were never really addressed or sincerely implemented,” adds Rajagopalan.

“High-tech transfer points, like in Ejipura and Chamrajpet, will play a crucial role; there should be one such per constituency, meant only for mixed waste materials that require transportation,” he adds.

This is because he thinks that transporting garbage takes a toll on the system. “6000 MT of wet waste being hauled across multiple contract vehicles, burning diesel along the way, polluting our air is unexplainable,” he says.

“We are investing in leachate treatment at an exorbitant rate, investing nearly Rs 500 crore, perhaps forced by NGT orders. Biomining or legacy waste recovery, etc., come at huge costs. The details are also sparse on how 200 crore will be spent, with Rs 75 Cr for the development of new landfills,” he observes, adding that more transparency is required on every project that is undertaken.

Rajagopalan feels CBG plants will be a big part of the waste-to-energy solution, through partnerships with public sector undertakings such as ONGC and GAIL. “The current MSW plants must also be repurposed, and safety measures can ensure that large-scale 200-500 MT CBG plants are operational problem-free,” he feels.

BBMP, however, has its justifications. “The user fee will help us meet the expenses incurred in the collection, transportation, processing and disposal of solid waste. It will also make the Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Ltd less dependent on BBMP or government grants,” says a senior official.

“The funds are also needed as we are planning to come up with integrated solid waste management facilities in four directions of the city, and also overhaul the collection and transportation systems by inducting new vehicles.