Pollution Control Department (PCD) and GIZ developed a programme called “WISE” or Wastewater treatment Infrastructure Service fee Estimation. The tool aims to support the Local Government Organizations (LGO) to estimate the wastewater treatment cost and to determine service charges.

LGOs have mandates to propose the wastewater rates when requesting the budget for the wastewater treatment system construction according to the Article 88 of Promotion and Conservation of National Environmental Quality Act, B.E. 2535. Therefore, the service fee needs to reflect the actual operation cost and is in line with the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP), which means those who produce pollution need to cover the managing cost to prevent human health and environment damage.

As a technical advice provider, the Domestic Wastewater Sub-division under PCD recently released the Notification of “Wastewater Fee Determination” indicating how to calculate operation cost, such as, manpower, electricity charges, maintenance cost as well as how to come up with an appropriate service fee.

To facilitate the calculation process, PCD and GIZ developed the WISE programme and conducted a training to inform the rationale, the principles of service rate calculation and to test the programme. Representatives from LGOs, Wastewater Management Authority (WMA), Regional Environmental Office (REO) and relevant agencies joined the training on 12 November 2020 at Eastin Grand Sathorn hotel.

In his opening speech, Mr. Somchai Songprakob, Deputy Director-General of PCD, stated that “we are revising the regulations to facilitate the roles and responsibilities of LGOs to better manage wastewater treatment system and collect service fee.” This includes ensuring that the collected service fees can be used to operate the wastewater treatment system immediately without transferring them first to the Ministry of Finance.

In addition, Mr. Chira Wongburana, Director of WMA, emphasised that sufficient budget is vital to maintain the wastewater treatment services. “This initiative will benefit LGOs and relevant agencies as well as enhance the overall management of domestic wastewater in Thailand.”