Bhubaneswar, June 10: The municipal corporation has decided to restructure its taxes to augment revenue.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation proposes to rationalise the express cleaning service charges for hospitals, hotels, marriage mandaps and apartment blocks.

It would also request the state government to enhance the compensation paid in lieu of octroi — which was abolished in 1999. Similarly, the civic body has proposed replacement of holding tax with property tax to bring in more revenue.

At present, the civic body’s charge for cleaning hospitals is Rs 4,000 a month. However, of the 196 hospitals, including nursing homes, in the city, only 52 are listed with the corporation. “At the moment, the express cleaning service for all hospitals and nursing homes is the same irrespective of their size. We intend to rationalise it by making the charge commensurate with the size of the institution and the volume of the waste generated,” said municipal commissioner Krishan Kumar.

City health officer Chandrika Prasad Das said the corporation would take steps to include all the health institutions in the service list to increase the tax base.

For hotels and restaurants, the charge varies from Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 a month. The city has 200 hotels, including nine star ones, but only 70 are registered under the service.

“We will carry out a survey and put the hotels and restaurants in A, B and C categories in a month, so that the cleaning charges can be fixed rationally. The marriage mandaps will also be listed in the service as there are more than 60 of them in the city,” said Das.

Kharavela Nagar resident Surendra Sahu said: “The marriage mandaps in our locality pollute the surrounding, as, instead of subscribing to the corporation’s cleaning package, they burn the waste on their premises.”

On the other hand, the city houses around 600 apartments. Garbage cleaning rate for apartments under the service varies from Rs 500 to Rs 2,000 a month. But till date, only 100 apartments have been registered under the service.

Newly elected chairman of the corporation’s standing committee on finance Seikh Nizamuddin said: “Apart from effective collection of the fees for garbage, we will demand more octroi compensation and implementation of the property tax to augment our revenue and ensure better service and funding of new projects.”

The civic body currently receives Rs 4.5 crore a month as octroi compensation from the state government. “After abolition of the entry tax (octroi) in early 90s, the base value for the octroi compensation should have been revised, but despite requests from the civic body, it has not been done. If this happens, we will get around Rs 100 crore to Rs 120 crore a year,” said Nizamuddin.

The municipal commissioner said the corporation’s proposal to implement the property tax instead of holding tax was pending with the state government. He said there was a proposal to collect a nominal charge for garbage collection from every household once the solid waste treatment plant started functioning at Bhuasuni. A private firm signed an agreement with the civic body on May 29 to set up a solid waste treatment plant at Bhuasuni. It will charge the corporation Rs 324 for every tonne of solid waste treated.