Cutting across the party lines, the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh (MCC) councillors on Thursday rejected the proposal regarding revision in water tariff. The proposal, to revise water tariff in Chandigarh, was proposed in the MCC house meeting to generate revenue and prevent wastage of potable water.
Harphool Chand, City mayor, said “We want to overcome the loss of potable water, but increasing water charges will not help to curb the wastage of water as most of the water goes waste in pipeline leakages. We don’t want to take any risk by changing the cost of basic amenities like water.”
The councillors also opposed the proposal saying that first the department should take steps to stop the leakage. A revision in the water tariff was proposed beyond 30 kilolitre (kl) per month for each domestic connection. Those consuming less (below 30 kl) were being spared. The proposal was prepared to overcome the shortage of water which the city is going to face in the future.
There is already a gap between demand and supply. The city is receiving 87 million gallons daily (MGD) water against a demand of 116 MGD. It was proposed to hike the rate from Rs6 to Rs7 per kl for water consumption from 30 to 60 kl per month and from Rs8 to Rs25 per kl for consumption from
61 to 80 kl per month and from Rs8 to Rs40 per kl for consumption of more than 80 kl for
residential consumers.