Clubbed STELCO-WAMCO bill: No charge for unused metres
WAMCO will also not charge garbage collection during the months when electricity bills are not sent in cases where the electricity meter does not run enough.
By
Ahmed Mizyal
Even as the Waste Management Corporation (WAMCO) has linked the garbage collection fee with STELCO’s electricity bills from April, STELCO has said that it will not include the waste collection service fee in cases where electricity metres are not functional.
The environment ministry has decided to include WAMCO’s waste collection charges in the STELCO bill to address the issue of many households not paying for waste collection services in the Greater Male Region.
Due to non-payment of dues to WAMCO:
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The company's cash flow is limited and some of the equipment used to provide services is not properly repaired and unusable
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The cost of resolving these increases, making it more challenging to collect and manage the waste collection
WAMCO held a press conference on Monday to share how it is being done as the April electricity bill that will be sent in May includes WAMCO’s fee.
Replying to a question from Atoll Times at the conference, WAMCO Managing Director Yusuf Siraj said that the current arrangement is to link every electricity bill with the waste bill.
Therefore, he said that WAMCO will also not charge garbage collection during the months when electricity bills are not sent in cases where the electricity meter does not run enough to be charged for it.
"There is a standard adopted by STELCO in billing. STELCO will not bill if a certain meter reading is not done in a certain way, or the total amount is not different. In those circumstances, we will look into it further," Siraj said.
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In household collection - if STELCO does not read a power usage of 34 kW during the bill preparation period for a domestic meter, it will be declared unused, and no waste collection bill will be levied on the site
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In commercial collection - if STELCO does not read a power usage of 16 kW during the bill preparation period for a commercial category meter, it will be considered unused and will not be billed for waste collection.
No charge on lifts, maintenance metres
At the meeting, a WAMCO official said that they are planning to link the two bills and in doing so, they will look at the list of meters in the STELCO database.
"From the list, we can identify maintenance meters and lift meters in commercial and residential buildings," he said.
"However, some meters are not marked that way, even from STELCO’s list."
While the WAMCO fee is not linked to the bill for lifts and maintenance meters, the presence of meters that are not recognised as such meters will include WAMCO fees.
WAMCO plans to launch a 'meter exclusion' form in the coming days to share information about such unmarked meters.
Once the application is submitted, WAMCO will study the meter within five days and deduct it from billing for waste collection services.
From April onwards, the electricity bill will include garbage collection charges and some changes will also be made in the way WAMCO provides services. Thus:
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Households will collect garbage at MVR 150 (at the rate of MVR 150 per month totals MVR 1,800 per annum. After dividing it for 365 days, at the rate of MVR 4.9 per day)
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The bill will be based on the number of days in the electricity bill prepared by STELCO
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From April, garbage from households and commercial establishments will be collected from below the building; the time for waste removal is between 5 pm and 7 pm
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The commercial collection service will start at MVR 972 (which is a baseline package of 120 litres per day).
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Places where less than that amount of waste is generated can apply for smaller packages
