The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Vijayawada News : Move to hike water tariff for flats opposed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 30, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada

Move to hike water tariff for flats opposed

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, APRIL 29. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) has demanded that the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) convene an emergency general body meeting to discuss the corporation's move to hike water tariff for apartments in the city through "back-door methods.''

The corporation should also come out with its summer action plan to meet the scarcity of water in different areas in the city. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, the CPI (M) city secretary and floor leader of the party in the VMC, Ch.Babu Rao, said the authorities had proposed to collect Rs. 100 from each flat, though technically only one connection was given to the entire block.

He said the municipal corporation was giving only one connection to apartment blocks and water charges were being collected on the basis of the meter readings.

Currently, domestic connection-holders were paying a water charge of Rs. 100 per month. The system of charging apartment-owners on the basis of meter readings was being gradually phased out with the municipal staff asking dwellers of every flat to pay Rs.100.

The staff were collecting `willingness letters' from the secretaries of the flat-owners welfare associations instead of openly increasing the water bill, Mr Babu Rao said. The new system would increase the water charges 100 to 600 per cent.

Flat-owners who were paying water bill of Rs.300 per month would soon have to pay Rs.4,000.

There were about 10,000 houses in apartment complexes in the city. A VMC general body resolution passed in 1993 had restricted the number of connections to an apartment block to one as it was expensive to give a separate connection to each flat.

Mr. Babu Rao said the municipal authorities should also table at the emergency meeting the summer action plan for distribution of water and the fate of Rs. 29.5-crore plan to develop infrastructure needed for the supply of an additional 18 million gallons a day (MGD) to the citizens.

The CPI (M) leader said water supply in the city was irregular and inequitable. While residents of some areas had municipal water supply round the clock, there were areas, which had supply for just an hour. Almost 20 per cent of the city was not being supplied municipal water.

The corporation was still supplying groundwater to larger areas like Patamata, he said, adding that the progress in construction of water treatment plants and overhead tanks was tardy.

The 10 MGD plant taken up to provide quality water to the stretch from Patamata to Ramavarapadu and all the colonies in between could be completed to an extent of 60 per cent.

Though the municipal authorities claimed that an additional 18 MGD water would be supplied to provide relief this summer, there had been no increase in the production of the existing treatment plants.

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