Garbage services: User fee up to Rs 2K for villages

Citizens in rural Karnataka will have to cough up anywhere between Rs 20 and Rs 2,000 as “user fees” every month with the state government moving towards comprehensive solid waste management (SWM) plan for all villages.

The user fees will be levied based on the size/area of the waste generator, the amount of waste generated, costs incurred in operation of SWM infrastructure and the capacity to pay, according to the Karnataka State Policy on Sanitation and Waste Management.

The user fees, authorities say, will help sustain SWM activities that will be rolled out in all gram panchayats.

The policy, which is anchored by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) department, will see the door-to-door collection of garbage implemented in villages, the onus of which is on the 6,024-gram panchayats in the state.

On this front, the Cabinet recently approved the Karnataka Panchayat Raj (Sanitation & Liquid Waste Management) Model Bye-laws, 2019, which has been circulated to all gram panchayats.

Karnataka wants to introduce villages to scientific SWM practices as the next step after being declared open defecation free (ODF). In November 2018, rural Karnataka was declared ODF after 45.42 lakh toilets were constructed for as many households that had no access to toilets five years ago. The Swachh Bharat Mission requires states that have been declared ODF to focus on total sanitation, personal hygiene practices, treatment of wastewater and so on.

According to the policy document, Karnataka has set a 2022 deadline to achieve 100% at-source segregation and processing of biodegradable waste.