The Indian Express 14.03.2013
After power tariff hike, MC proposes hiking water bills
After the proposed electricity hike, city residents should ready themselves for another shock as the Municipal Corporation made a presentation to UT Advisor K K Sharma, on Wednesday, for hiking water tariff.
The hike could be especially substantial in the higher slabs where water consumption is more.
The municipal corporation spends Rs 80 crore on water distribution and maintenance, while the revenue collected is around Rs 55 crore. While the tariff was increased three years back, the hike had not been sufficient.
While the quantum of hike is yet to be decided, it is proposed that the hike should be more in the higher slabs. Interestingly, even though the southern sectors are more thickly populated, the consumption of water is higher in the northern sectors. The northern sectors that house 30 per cent of the population consume around 70 per cent of the water.
In these sectors, the consumption is as high as 1000 litres per person per day, while in the southern sectors it is 150 litres per person per day.
The gap is attributed to the use of water for the purpose of watering lawns. Officials state that some northern sector houses have swimming pools that are filled with potable water.
It is also proposed that these houses have connections for tertiary treated water for watering lawns. Meters will also be installed with these connections to ensure residents make use of the tertiary treated water.
Another issue on which discussion was held was that of having 24x7 water supply in the city. Officials opine that this would reduce the wastage of water. In fact the experiment has proven to be successful in several places where this was started.
An issue of concern for the summers is that there is no additional water supply. The Administration had wanted that canal water be supplied to the 13 villages under its purview as well as the IT Park. The officials informed that the city gets 87 mgd of water. Of this 6 mgd would have to be given to Panchkula and 3 mgd to Chandimandir once the pipeline is laid.
