Aurangabad: The civic body has decided not to hike the user fee towards solid waste management.The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had earlier decided to the increase the user fee, but has decided to continue with its existing tax regime for the next financial year 2019-20.The user charges are being levied as a component of the property tax by the local self-governing bodies as part of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 in order to achieve well-being of the citizens and also make the management units self-sustainable.The AMC annually charges Rs 100 and Rs500 as a user fee towards solid waste management from residential and commercial property owners, respectively. Both the standing committee and the general body of the civic body had recently resolved for charging user fee of Re1 per day and Rs2 per day from residential and commercial property holders, respectively. Annually, the user fee would have been Rs365 and Rs 730.However, the public notification issued by the AMC on Tuesday to declare the tax structure for the next fiscal, had announced no increase in the user charge in question.The stand taken by the civic body has evoked mixed reactions considering the historic city of Aurangabad achieving dubious distinction of being a ‘garbage city’ owing to the challenges it has been facing in waste disposal over a period of last one year.A civic official, who did not wish to be named, said the elected representatives decided to simply roll over the existing tax structure for the next year may be considering the General Elections lined up in near future.“As the tax structure has remained unchanged for the next year, there was no question of imposing hike in the user charges towards the solid waste management,” he said.Civic officials, however, stressed that the AMC was paying far more on waste disposal as compared to earnings through user charges for the solid waste management. “The user charges concerned are part of the property tax, whose recovery is abysmally low at around 20%. The expenditure on the solid waste management under different heads such as salary of sanitation staff, transportation of garbage, equipment purchase and operational cost as a whole is far more than the recovery through user charges,” a senior AMC official said.Aurangabad municipal commissioner Nipun Vinayak could not be reached for comments.Mayor Nandkumar Ghodele, who was busy attending Shiv Jayanti celebrations, too was unavailable for his take on the issue.

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