Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has collected Rs 4 crore in user fee in the past year. “Last year, Rs 2 crore was collected,” BMC’s deputy commissioner (revenue) Ajay Mohanty said on Wednesday.“The fee is being collected for generation of municipal waste daily in households and various institutions and hotels. This is separate from holding tax. To make people follow the habit of paying the mandatory user fee, this year we relaxed the fee structures, following which we got the result,” Mohanty added.According to BMC’s user fee rate chart, a low-income group with an 800 sqft built-up area needs to pay Rs 50 as user fee per month, while a middle-income group with 1,200 sq ft should pay Rs 75. Guest houses and hotels with 10 rooms are asked to pay Rs 500 and those with between 20 and 30 rooms are asked to pay Rs 1,000 per month. Residential schools and colleges are asked to pay Rs 3,000 per month.Earlier, residents had raised objections to BMC’s drive to collect user fees in one go annually instead of collecting it per month. “To mop up more revenue, we will try to collect a monthly fee from next financial year. But for that we need more manpower,” Mohanty added.In Swachh Survekshan’s cleanliness survey, there’s a segment on user fee and a city’s ranking is dependent on the amount collected every year.
