Urban News

With city set to get water supply on alternate days from Thursday, private water tanker owners are gearing up to make extra buck. But this time, the PMC has decided to put them in place by restricting the supply of water. Last year, the private water tanker owners took advantage of the situation by charging the consumers almost thrice what they paid the civic body. The PMC has decided to initiate steps to restrict tanker owners from drawing extra water, by making it mandatory for them to submit demand letters of housing societies at the refilling stations.

“We are aware the private water tanker owners will take advantage of the situation by charging more from citizens. The initiative to fix rates for private

water tanker owners was taken last year, but it is difficult to implement,” said Pramod Nirbhavane, PMC, development engineer.

Last year, private tanker owners were charged Rs 400 for refilling, while they were taking Rs 1,200 from citizens. Therefore, the civic body, after holding discussions with the tanker owners, had fixed a rate of Rs 600 per 10,000-litre tanker, Rs 700 per 15,000-litre tanker and Rs 800 per 20,000-litre tanker, per trip.

The private water tanker owners will again exploit the situation after the water cuts will be implemented, he said.

“We are taking steps to ensure that private tanker owners don’t use water supplied from the filling centre of the civic body to make big business,”he added. 

The civic body has decided that new tankers will not be allowed to get refill from the centre and the frequency of the old tankers will be maintained.

“The private tanker owners will also have to submit a letter of demand from the housing societies for whom the water is refilled, so that no particular society gets more water even if they shell out more from their pockets,” Nirbhavane said.

The unrestricted access to tankers will lead to rush at refilling stations by private tanker owners. It might also lead to misuse of water by certain localities that can afford to pay more, he said, adding, “It will not meet the objective of equal distribution of water.”

“We have issued directives to all pumping stations and refilling centres not to allow tankers to draw water more than that is being supplied under normal circumstances,” Nirbhavane added.

Suresh Shinde, Mukund water supplier, said, “Our business is based on the demands of the citizens and not artificially created. If there are restrictions on supply then we will not be able to meet the demand.”

The private tanker owners will be forced to refill the tankers from the well and the quality cannot be assured, he said.