Consumer commission pulls up Chandigarh MC for wrongly charging ₹1,000 as garbage fee

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has directed the Chandigarh municipal commissioner to adjust ₹1,000, wrongly collected by the civic body as garbage collection charges, in future bills of a 75-year-old city resident.

The complainant, RL Arora, a retired government employee, submitted before the commission that he was residing as a tenant on the top floor of a house in Sector 21-A.

He said that two water meters were installed for the occupants. One meter was for the occupants of the ground floor plus first floor and the second water meter was exclusively for the top floor.

Arora added that the door-to-door garbage collection service was previously provided by the Residents’ Welfare Association, Sector 21, up to March 31, 2021, and ₹900 were paid as charges to the association for the one-year period.

Thereafter, a private contractor provided the service for the months of April and May 2021 at the rate of ₹100 per month.

Arora said he received a water bill dated June 25, 2021, for the top floor, which contained a sum of ₹1,000 as arrears of door-to-door garbage collection charges for the period of January 2021 to May 2021. A similar amount of ₹1,000 was also levied on the occupants of ground floor plus first floor.

Arora submitted that he made a request before MC that the garbage collection service was provided by MC from the last week of June 2021 and arrears charged in the bills for the period January 2021 to May 2021 were unjustified as well as unlawful.

The complainant submitted a letter to MC for redressal of the grievances, but received no response.

It was further stated that as per the notification of Solid Waste Management Bylaws, 2018, by Chandigarh administration’s department of local government, the user fee has been mentioned as ₹200 per month from each premises/house covered under 200 square metres to 500 square metres.

In its reply, MC stated that the instant complaint failed itself on the grounds of the bylaws not being adhered to, as Chapter IX, Clause 13, sub-clause (g) clearly mentioned that if any person was not satisfied with the decision of authorised officer, medical officer health in this case, they can file an appeal to appellate authority designated by the MC commissioner for further action.

Thus, for not following the appropriate procedure for availing the remedy, the complaint needs to be dismissed, the civic body contended.

Taking note of the submissions, District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission president Pawanjit Singh said it was crystal clear that the complainant had got garbage collection done for five months from private operators, after making necessary payment to them.

It was also an admitted fact by MC that it charged ₹1,000 from the complainant for the said period, which in our view were required to be refunded or adjusted in further bills, said the commission while disposing of the complaint with direction to MC to adjust the ₹1,000 in future garbage collection charges.