KMC mulls waiving off solid waste management dues upto FY 2022-23

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is planning to waive off solid waste management (SWM) dues of several trade establishments in the city upto financial year 2022-23.

Several Certificate of Enlistment (CE) holders were unable to make payment of SWM fees upto financial year (FY) 2022-23 and consequently could not renew their CE for the FY 2023-24 and 2024-25. This is because the civic body has made it mandatory for commercial establishments to clear all SWM dues for renewal of their trade licences.

There are several traders who don’t have any such SWM demands upto FY 2022-23 and were in the category where the SWM fee demand had to be imposed on them for the FY 2023-24. However, owing to technical glitches of the IT department of KMC they were issued, or got their CE renewed, for FY 2023-24 without knowing about their corresponding SWM user charges. At the time of renewal of their CEs for FY 2024-25 they were informed through both online and offline mode that they need to pay (both principal and interest amount) for FY 2023-24 and FY 2024-25 before getting their CEs issued/renewed.

Meanwhile, the SWM demands generated for FY 2018-19 and the consequent FYs upto 2022-23 was specific in nature and not uniformly adopted by KMC due to a drawback of not informing the CE holders on time.

Following the mayor’s approval, a decision was made in December 2024 to waive “unpaid SWM demand (both principal and interest) upto FY 2022-23 amounting to Rs 5695410 (principal) and the interest calculated... with no refund and adjustment of the paid SWM demands amounting to Rs 20617176 upto FY 2022-23”. The proposal is likely to be passed by KMC on January 17, sources said.

Such a decision also comes in the wake of KMC incorporating some points in the Kolkata gazette which is to be notified. Some of these are issuance/renewal of CE will only be done if payment of corresponding SWM user charges is made before such issuance/renewal. In case the new CE is cancelled due to nonpayment of SWM user charges along with CE demand for any reasons within 30 days, the CE will automatically get cancelled and the corresponding SWM demand nullified.

The trade establishments which are running without a CE will be inspected by SWM officials and demands for service fee will be raised accordingly.