Team Herald
CURCHOREM: The Curchorem-Cacora Municipal Council (CCMC) has decided to impose garbage collection fees of Re 1 per day and Rs 600 per year on small shop owners/traders with effect from April 1.
This decision was taken during the meeting held between the Council and Curchorem Market Association members including other associations of traders from Curchorem market held in the municipality hall on Monday in the presence of Power Minister and local MLA Nilesh Cabral, chairperson Felix Fernandes, chief officer Kapil Phadte and councillors.
The council decided to hold another meeting with hoteliers, restaurants owners and doctors to discuss and fixed garbage collection charges respectively as per their establishments.
It may be recalled that at the earlier council meeting, the business community under the jurisdiction of CCMC had vehemently opposed the council’s decision to impose the sanitation/garbage collection fess claiming it to be exorbitant.
Explaining the purpose behind collecting the fees, Cabral said for the last nine years he was collecting the garbage from the entire Curchorem constituency at his own expense with the intention to keep the town clean without burdening the common man but now due to financial constraint and also to generate revenue to municipality he requested them to follow it and after several deliberations they decided to collect the garbage by charging necessary fees as per the establishments.
“Since the councils are autonomous bodies, they have to generate their own income and pay the salaries and this Council has to pay around Rs 23 lakh per month to staff and the current income of the municipality does not meet their demand,” he said and added that Rs 1.4 crore contract was given to private agency after floating an open e-tender to collect garbage.
He assured to reconsider the collection of garbage fees once the garbage treatment plant commences at Cacora.
“When the work starts at Cacora as per Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) agreement I would request the company to collect the garbage from Curchorem-Cacora area free of cost,” said Cabral
Clarifying his earlier statement that the council had taken a resolution to introduce the sanitation fees during the council meeting as the amount was not discussed, councillor Balkrishna (Pinty) Hodarkar said he stands by his remark and asked the councillors to raise their hands if the amount was mentioned in the resolution and they supported it. But none raised their hand.
