With the new water tariff hike passed in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) House, the corporation will incur a loss of around ₹47 crore every year.
In the house meeting held Tuesday, it was resolved by the councillors that atleast till the time COVID period is on, 2011 rates of water may be in force (that is pre-notification rates) and after pandemic is over, restructuring of two slabs be done along with reduction in sewerage cess.
The officials have prepared a proposal in this regard that will be sent to Administrator VP Singh Badnore. Earlier, on the objection of Corporation Commissioner KK Yadav, the administration had returned the proposal to reduce the price of water.
A proposal to reduce water prices was brought in a meeting of the House held on March 9. In this, the proposal of reducing sewer cess from 30% to 5% was passed along with the change in the two categories of domestic rates of water. It was also stated that after Covid period is over, new rates will be applicable but with reduction in rates of two slabs that is in slab of 31- 60 KL, the rate be reduced from Rs 12 per KL to Rs 9 per KL. In the slab of above 60 KL, the rate be reduced from Rs 24 per KL to Rs 16 per KL. To this proposal, Corporation Commissioner KK Yadav had objected.
The BJP councillors said in the House that people have been suffering with high rates. At the same time, the Congress questioned saying that it was the BJP itself which hiked the rates and “now they were pretending to understand the pain of people”.
Notably, the MC currently spends ₹245 crore on water supply, while this year it has kept revenue of only ₹157 crore. Accordingly, the MC is already at a loss of ₹88 crore. The corporation officials will send this report to the administration as soon as the commissioner returns from leave.
The commissioner says that like the earlier proposal, if the range of 31 to 60 KL is reduced to ₹9, the corporation will incur a loss of ₹11 crore. This deficit can be met by closing the day’s supply because people do not need the water much at that time.
