Bengaluru: With the BBMP announcing recently that it will stop lifting garbage from apartment complexes housing more than 50 flats, apartment residents have opposed the move and demanded that the BBMP stop collecting solid waste management cess and property tax too from them.
They said why should they pay taxes for services that the BBMP is not providing. “Also, the Palike should stop terming apartment complexes as ‘bulk generators’,” they said. There are nearly 4,000 apartments in the city with 50 units and above.
“The BBMP has got its basics wrong. They should not be calling apartment complexes bulk generators. Apartments are places where many houses are located on one campus,” said Mr Srikanth Narasimhan, general secretary, Bangalore Apartments’ Federation.
“Segregation percentage for the whole city is around 40 percent as majority of individual houses do not segregate. But all apartments have clear guidelines on garbage segregation. Instead of BBMP going flat by flat, we provide consolidated segregated garbage at one place, making the work of the civic body easy. But they do not want to lift garbage from apartment complexes and term us bulk generators, which is ridiculous. When a hotel generates garbage it is a single entity. When say 50 or 100 apartments generate garbage, it is not bulk,” he reasoned.
“Apartments are now paying SWM cess of Rs 30 per flat. They further pay around Rs 200-250 per flat to empanelled vendors to lift garbage. Adding to their financial burden is the setting up of organic composters, which runs up to a few lakhs, and the additional cost of maintaining every month. The fundamental question is why should we pay for services the BBMP is not providing us,” he asked.
“We are okay with handing over garbage to empanelled vendors. But BBMP should stop collecting SWM cess and property tax,” he insisted.
