The Times of India 21.04.2013
No tax, but state may sell water to make up for it
KOLKATA: The state may not be urban development department wants to make up for not collecting water tax from the people, but it is planning to make up for this by selling about 15% of water from 23 treatment plants, being set up in the state, to bottled water manufacturers. The idea is to collect the operational and maintenance cost of these treatment plants. The urban development department has sent the proposal to Centre for approval.
Secretary level officers had gone to Delhi last week to place some proposals to the Centre.
"The Centre has been insisting on collecting water tax. However, we have placed a proposal to them that we will keep along some land for mineral water manufacturers.
About 10% to 15% of the total quantity of water that will be produced from the water treatment plants will be sold to the bottled water manufacturers. Thereby, the money can be utilized for the operational and maintenance charges of the water plants. We also have plans to keep land close to the treatment plants for the bottled water manufacturers, which they can use for setting up their bottling plants," state urban development minister Firhad Hakim said.
The Mamata Banerjee government has never been in favour of imposing water tax in the city and other municipalities within the Kolkata metropolitan area, saying that it does not want to put pressure on the common people by levying water tax. The chief minister herself had earlier assured that water tax would not be introduced.
However, by doing this, the state government is acting against the norms as per the JNNURM scheme. According to rules, water tax has to be levied by the respective civic authorities to comply with the JNNURM scheme. State officials have been discussing about the issue with the Centre on a number of times.
The urban development department has also placed a proposal before the Centre for allowing its state-level steering committee to continue go on with small changes that often arise while executing projects under the JNNURM scheme.
At present, the state has to send proposals to the Centre before going ahead with the changes in the project implementation that arises.
"While executing projects, we often have to situation arises for some small changes like use adjacent plots or dig soil further deep or similar matters. But for this, the Centre's permission is needed. This takes time. We have given a proposal, so that our state level steering committee can decide by itself to work on these small changes," Hakim added.
Earlier, the state government urged the Planning Commission if in the second phase of JNNURM, the state contribution could be made only 10%, instead of the present 65%. The Planning Commission allowed the Bengal government to submit fresh projects under the ongoing JNNURM phase I scheme.
