Chairman of the solid waste management (SWM) department Subhash Kanta Sawant today announced that the BMC would increase refuse charge for private hospitals, five-start hotels and beer bars. The civic corporation was spending in crores on transportation while its revenue for the service in the form of refuse tax was minimal, he added. The municipal corporation collects about 2.5 tons of garbage from various private hospitals and hotels.

Without naming the hospital, he informed that the BMC was spending about Rs 90,000 to transport two truckload of waste from a reputed city hospital, while the refuse tax collected was a little over Rs 3,000 per month. He added that the new rates of tax will be finalised within a fortnight. Since the MunicipalCommissioner now has the power to hike the refuse tax, the new rates can be applied without any hurdles.

Chief engineer in charge of SWM department M R Shah informed that the BMC was considering a new concept called Hospital Waste Management in which the corporation will recover the money it had spent on disposing of the waste. He informed that the BMC will set up a new cell to implement the scheme scheduled to launched on August 15. He revealed that the various voluntary agencies and the Central and state governments have evinced interest in participating in the scheme.

The SWM department is also considering a proposal from Congress corporator Shubhash Mayekar on employing rickshaws to collect garbage from narrow lanes.He suggested that each ward should be provided with one rickshaw and the corporators would bear the cost of running it.