If the central government has its way , citizens may have to start paying for the waste generated in households. The government of India has drafted a manual for municipal solid waste management to help municipal bodies to manage their waste. According to the 74th amendment to the Constitution, urban local bodies can impose taxes and raise funds for public health, sanitation, conservancy and solid waste management. The draft manual states that it was advisable to levy a dedicated tariff for solid waste services. The government has asked local bodies to consider basic principles while prescribing norms for levying user charge/service fee for solid waste management services. The first principle prescribed by the government is the ‘Polluter Pays Principle’ which states that those responsible for waste generation should pay for its collection and safe disposal. Explaining the structure of charges, the government has suggested that user fees should be in proportion to the quantity of waste generated and level of service provided to waste generators. Variable rates may be prescribed for different categories of waste generators keeping in view their waste generation pattern. A fair user fee will facilitate better compliance. The capacity to pay and affordability of tax payers may be kept in view by the civic bodies while imposing charges, states the manual. “Central government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to improve infrastructure in Indian cities failed because local bodies did not improve their working and finances. This mission included reforms like rationalisation of user charges, taxation, ways to increase non-tax revenue and unlocking land value. But local bodies do not recover the user charges for services they provide due to votebank politics. The BJP government, however, is likely to be strict in this regard,” an urban development official said. Government sources add ed that the central government, while launching new schemes for urbanization, is likely to set up a municipal service regulator who will have the powers to revise user charges regularly. This will avoid the need for significant increases after a long gap. Senior PMC official said that all party corporators have repeatedly opposed any move to impose user charges for any civic service. “However, the new government has hinted that central government funds to the municipal bodies will be directly attached with reforms. Recently the union urban department (UD) had convened meeting of all state UD officials where the government dropped clear hints in this regard,” the official said. CENTRE'S SUGGESTION FOR SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT FINANCING Public Private Partnerships (PPP): PPP are innovative approaches used by the public sector to attract private sector to make investments and take up certain responsibilities of service delivery, while the public sector retains the principal responsibility for these services. PPP mechanisms aim ­ as the case may be at financing, designing, implementing and operating public sector facilities and services through service provisions (short and long term, in some cases up to 30 years) ä Loan from bi-lateral and Multi-lateral Agencies: These agencies provide soft loans on long term and grants for infrastructure projects. Usually, these funds are given in the form of soft loans with a grant component for project preparation or capacity building ä National and state level infrastructure funds: Infrastructure funds both at the national and state level play an important role for financing infrastructure projects. They are supplemented by state level Infrastructure Funds (from supply side) and Pooled Finance Funds (from demand side) at the State level (e.g. Tamil Nadu has provided funds for infrastructure projects) ä Municipal Bonds and Debentures: The bonds/ debentures are issued to the general public or to specific institutional investors. In case of municipal bonds, they can either be taxable or tax-free. In India, the Municipal bond market is still in its nascent stages ä Enhancing continuous revenues in projects: It is of paramount importance for sustainable financing to strengthen project revenues. It is imperative that the projects are planned in such a way that they are selfsustainable and can deliver desired outcomes for a longer period. MSWM operations usually depend on SWM taxes or fees/charges. Other sources of revenues might be relevant as illustrated