The Statesman 02.05.2013
Residents oppose decision to install water meters
The civic body's budget for the year had envisaged installing water meters in wards 1-6 in north Kolkata to assess water loss, and the Mayor, Mr Sovan Chatterjee, had urged people to cooperate with KMC for the same in his Budget speech.
Following discussions between officials of Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP) and KMC's water supply department, a decision was taken to install water meters in institutional, commercial and privately-owned buildings to determine the use of drinking water.
The KMC does not have any data on the daily loss of filtered drinking water in the city; rough estimates peg this loss at around 20 million gallons daily.
It is learnt that Trinamul Congress leaders are opposing the move as party chief Miss Banerjee had repeatedly said that no water tax would be imposed.
Residents are also opposing the move as they feel the installation of water meters on an experimental basis is a precursor to levying water charge.
The Asian Development Bank has been pressuring KMC to levy water charges to repay its loan for quite some time. A fresh loan from the bank is due, and it has urged the KMC to make its revenue collection system transparent and impose water tax.
It had suggested that water meters be installed in two wards in Behala and drinking water be supplied for 24 hours to measure usage and losses. However, the KMC had not accepted the proposal.
This isn't the first instance of the Trinamul Congress opposing the civic body's tax collection drive ~ though a new method of assessing property tax called the unit area assessment in KMC parlance has been ready, it could not be implemented following objection from the party.
Meanwhile, electricity charges and the price of items required to purify water have gone up and civic officials feel that imposition of water tax is must if the production and distribution network is to be maintained.
It may be recalled that the former mayor, Mr Prasanta Chatterjee, had mooted the imposition of water tax; however, it could not be implemented owing to opposition from the Kolkata district committee of the CPI-M.
Civic officials are up in at at the latest opposition. "The situation is really tragic...water tax can be imposed without causing any major pain to property owners and it will help the civic authorities enormously. A majority of property owners are ready to pay the tax if it is not too high as well," said a senior official.
