New Delhi
Dhalaos are overflowing and landfills are badly managed. People will agree to pay but who will ensure that Delhi is kept clean? “People pay their local garbage collectors. “Only outer main streets are swept; inner lanes are not even cleaned by MCD. For door-to-door collection, shops and houses already employ private informal workers.
“Around 70-80% of households are already paying some form of charge to their local informal waste collector. Because of gaps in municipal services, atul Goel, who heads URJA, an umbrella body of RWAs, said that the proposal also needed to account for the parallel waste collection network that has emerged.
Residents’ associations said that they would not object to a nominal fee if the civic body could demonstrate reliable service delivery. BS Vohra, who heads the East Delhi Residents’ Welfare Association Joint Front, said, “There are heaps of garbage on every nook and corner. Why should they pay MCD for its failure?” he said. Why can’t MCD concessionaires integrate them in the system?” he said. Ashok Bhasin, who heads the North Delhi Residents Welfare Federation, said that the residents already pay house tax to the MCD for such basic services. Who will employ these thousands and thousands of informal workers if MCD forces people to pay separately?” he said.
In the past, the introduction of a garbage fee in MCD areas has met stiff resistance from the political wing and residents. “We should focus on optimising the low-resource colonies and pick waste from every single corner. Around one third of Delhi would fall in this category.
In its last attempt, the MCD began levying the garbage user charge in April 2025, under the 2018 byelaws, by linking it to annual property-tax payments, which triggered large-scale opposition leading to a roll back in June. Chaturvedi also said free doorstep collection should not extend to larger generators, such as colonies with more than 100 households, markets, shopping complexes and hotels, arguing that such an approach would conflict with the requirement of solid waste management rules.
Waste management expert Bharati Chaturvedi, founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, said the focus should also be on redesigning concessionaire contracts and covering low-resource areas. We should retrofit concessionaire contract to include horticulture and construction waste,” she said.
