Indore: Indore might have bagged the cleanest city tag for third time in a row due to people’s awareness, but citizens have done little to pay Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) for collecting their garbage.Civic body’s records suggest that it has failed to recover 83 per cent of garbage collection charges due on account of door-to-door collection. IMC’s door-to-door garbage collection charges calculated between April 1, 2018 and March 12 this year, authorities had to collect Rs 54.23 crore from 4.78 lakh account holders including households and commercial establishments in city. Of this, only around 81,000 account holders have made payment of Rs 9.62 crore to IMC against the service.Of total 19 zones of IMC, maximum payment of door-to-door garbage collection fees of Rs 95.50 lakh has been from Zone-15 against target of Rs 3.11 crore while Zone-6 witnessed minimum collection of Rs 22.96 lakh. The corporation has involved a big team of revenue collectors but failed to recover even 20 per cent of total dues.According to IMC officials, authorities have spent Rs 133 crore in current financial year for maintaining cleanliness including door-to-door garbage collection work. However, poor recovery of fees has forced senior civic body officials to make some alternative steps to sustain the cleanliness model.“Poor recovery of door-to-door garbage collection fees is a matter of concern. One of the reasons behind is lack of manpower to recover tax. We have now engaged some NGOs and this has helped in speeding up collection work,” deputy commissioner Arun Sharma told TOI.He added that there are five rate-zones, where garbage collection charges range from Rs 60 to 150 per month based on amount of garbage generated from households situated in slums and posh areas. IMC officials face huge problem in collecting fees in slum areas. The civic body has now decided to create awareness among locals for their contribution in maintaining cleanliness.“People stop paying fees for garbage collection vehicles failing to turn up regularly. They should need to be regular to ensure payment of fees,” Sharma said.

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