CHENNAI: From April, households in the city, owners of commercial establishments and those hosting events will have to cough up extra money as user fee for removing garbage to the city corporation.Greater Chennai Corporation passed a special council resolution on the matter on November 20, 2019, under the Solid Waste Management bye-laws, 2019, and approached the state government which passed the GO on January 10 this year. It will be notified in the gazette soon, said a senior official.Minister for municipal administration S P Velumani on Thursday tweeted that the user fee would make the law stringent and help the state government realise its objectives of ensuring cleanliness. He requested the support and help of all stakeholders in this regard.According to the bye-laws, occupants of a house with a built-up area of up to 500 square feet will have to pay ?10 every month, while those living in a house with built-up area of more than 2,400 square feet will have to pay ?100 per month.The bye-laws propose to collect the fee from hotels, lodges, public and private community centres, cinema theatres, private and government offices, stalls to which trade licence is issued, private schools and colleges, places of worship and medical institutions. For medical instutitions, the fee would be for collection of non bio-medical waste only.The organisers of events would have to cough up as user fee ?5,000 if less than 500 people attend, while it would be ?20,000 if more than 1,000 persons attend. The fee would have to be paid along with the property tax once in six months, said a senior corporation official. “We will give a time of three months to publicise the fee amount as well as raise awareness. The collection will start in April,” he said.Apart from the user fee, the byelaws also mandate collection of a stiff amount as penalty for littering. For instance, unauthorised dumping of construction waste in any public place will attract a fine of ?2,000 for upto one tonne of waste and ?5,000 for more than a tonne. Anyone found burning waste on private premises would be fined ?500 would be collected, while anyone found burning waste material in public places would be made to cough up ?1,000 as penalty, state the bye-laws.In the case of a public gathering or a cultural programme, the organisers will have to pay a peanlty of ?5,000 if the venue is not cleaned up within 12 hours of the conclusion of the event.