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WATER WISE
Water bills need to say more
S. VISHWANATH
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Water bills have to serve beyond the purpose of just collecting money. They can be made a powerful tool of water literacy, with an attractive communication to bring in behavioural changes
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— Photo: K. Pichumani
Being water-smart: Water wisdom lies in designing smart water systems, involving students in their construction and maintenance.
The old saying has it that we know the worth of water when the well is dry. The new one would say, we know the worth of water when the bill arrives. If you are one of the lucky few who has a well in your house count your blessings and take steps to ensure that your well always is brimming with water. If you depend on your bore well then you have to take a look at your electricity bill to get some understanding of the price you pay for water. The poor unfortunately pay with
time and bad health for the water they access. Let us examine the people who are connected to the mainline to get a feel of the flow.
Getting a bill may not be the most pleasant thing to look forward to, be it electricity or water. But a bill can silently speak a lot more things and tell you many hidden realities. The foremost thing it teaches you is that it reaches your home only with a price, that it is an economic good and that it is costing somebody some money to get it to your house.
One would perhaps not be surprised to know that not everybody gets a monthly bill for water in India. Most cities recover water charges from property taxes or charge a flat monthly fee. Very few water providers charge on a volumetric basis, which experts agree is the best way to charge for a product. The more you consume the more you should pay.
In Bangalore city, there are over 5 lakh connections with meters. The Garden City is one of the rare few cities which has all water connections metered with a large percentage of the meters actually working! Take a long hard look at this bill which every customer connected to the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board gets, that is of course, if you are in Bangalore and connected to the water mainline. The water bill tells you how much water has been consumed in a month. It is an important signal for the consumer to moderate his water use.
Three categories
The bill tells you how much is being charged and for what kind of consumer it is being billed for. Bangalore has essentially three categories of consumers – Domestic, Non-domestic and Industrial. Non-domestic is the commercial consumer such as hotels and restaurants. It charges differently for these different categories assuming that the capacity to pay will vary with these different segments.
It also adopts an increasing block tariff. In the domestic and non-domestic sector the bill tells you that the rates vary with the block your water consumption is in. If you have used less than 8000 litres of water you pay at Rs.6 per thousand litre. However if you have used 10,000 litres in a month you pay at Rs. 6 per thousand litres for the first 8,000 litres and at Rs.9 per thousand litres for the next 2000 litres. Complicated perhaps but not so, once you get familiar with the system.
The non-domestic tariff begins at Rs.36 a kilo-litre. Quite high and the industrial tariff begin at Rs. 60 a kilo-litre, one of the highest in India.
Sanitary charges
Over 80 per cent of the water used in a house emerges as waste water or sewage. This has to be collected, conveyed and treated at a treatment plant set up for the purpose and it costs a lot more money than to supply water. The bill however tells you that you pay only 20 per cent (or less in the domestic sector) of your water bill as sanitary charges. If we do not pay for the entire cost of collection and treatment, our environment will suffer. A further charge is seen on the water bill and that is a bore well charge of Rs.50 a month for individual houses. Bangalore water supply provider argues that people who use bore well water send it out into the sewage lines and therefore they should pay for this sewage.
What it does not tell you
A mission statement would have been nice. Does the BWSSB intend to provide water for all in the city? At what price? When will all the poor access water? It is good to be clear on the goals and objectives of the organisation. It would have been nice if the bill had conveyed what it costs the BWSSB to get water to the consumer. The production cost of water would have made it clear as to what kind of subsidy people in the domestic category receive. This subsidy can be as high as Rs.300 a month.
The bill should also have told the consumer as to what percentage of the water is lost in the pipes. Leakage has been estimated between 30 to 47 per cent at various times. The bill could tell one as to how efforts are being taken to reduce the leakage and what is being achieved monthly.
In Bangalore the water bill can be paid 24/7 in many places. While the BWSSB is eager to collect money 24/7 it should also tell its consumers when they intend to supply water 24/7. The bill can be a good medium to state that goal.
The BWSSB should also give how much it costs them to collect and treat waste water and how much of a subsidy is given to house holds every month. This would incentivise people to pay and ensure that no sewage flows in the drains.
While a bill is a useful device to collect money, it can be made a powerful tool of water literacy. An consumer who is quite aware looks at her bill and engages the institutional service provider to get the best accountability in the system.
An institution that provides the bill every month to the consumer must be aware to use it as a medium of attractive communication to bring behavioural change too! A partnership of this kind only will bring about sustainable water management through removing mis-targeted subsidies and bringing transparency by involving all in achieving the goal, “water for all.”
www.rainwaterclub.org
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email: zenrainman@gmail.com
Ph: 23641690
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