After drawing major flak from the opposition in its decision of slapping a charge on Chennai residents in clearing the solid wastes, the Greater Chennai Corporation has on Thursday announced that it has suspended its decision. The development of suspending the decision has come two days after the civic body had implemented its drive of charging additional fees from the Chennai residents for clearing the garbages and solid waste. 

The Chennai Corporation has made the announcement of implementing its drive from January 1st on Tuesday and said that the local authority will be collecting user charges for solid waste management based on the by-laws in the Solid Waste Management Act 2019. The fee will be levied and collected based on the type of establishment and the output of the garbage for a designated period. 

The civic body said that the list of charges has been provided based on the type of establishment. According to the order, for the establishments that operate under the trade licenses of the corporation, the user must pay the charge between Rs 200 to Rs 1000 per month while the hospitals and nursing homes must pay the fee between the range of Rs 500 to 4000 per month and for the educational institutions, the user charges per month range from Rs 500 to 3000 per month.

The residential buildings will be charged between Rs 10 and Rs 100 based on the area to clear the solid waste and the wedding halls and community centers must be levied with a fee that ranges between Rs 1000 to 15000 per month while the restaurants and hotels would be charged from Rs 300 to Rs 5000 per month based on the average garbage and solid waste generated per day. 

The cinema halls and theaters would be levied the charge from Rs 2000 per month and the charge would be based on the number of screens and for the office spaces, the charges are based on the square feet area of the premises and ranges between Rs 300 and Rs 3000 per month. According to the civic body, the religious places and the places of worship, and all the other places that are not covered in the above categories would be charged between Rs 200 and Rs 500 per month for disposing of the solid waste. 

However, the decision of levying more charges on the residents to clear the solid waste had drawn major criticism from the opposition parties and stakeholders which had demanded the ruling ADMK government to suspend its decision. Tamil Nadu Opposition leader MK Stalin has flayed the ruling government on its decision and said that the additional charges for clearing the garbages will be an additional financial burden on the families that are already suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Stalin said that the state government has announced that the residents will have to pay for garbage clearance after awarding the contract for garbage to a private company. By citing that the government's drive of imposing additional charges is against democracy, Stalin stated that the decision would create a lot of issues as the fee will also apply for organizers of social, religious, and other events in public places based on the number of participants. 

The opposition leader and various stakeholders had demanded Chennai Corporation to take back its decision and following the outrage, the civic body has on Thursday announced that the decision of levying more charges on Chennai residents for clearing the garbage has been suspended.