Kolkata (PTI): A domestic water levy was on Saturday proposed for the first time in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation's 2008-09 annual budget.

Domestic water users, having 20 mm ferrule, would have to pay Rs 75 per month and those using 25 mm ferrule Rs 110 per month, Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said while tabling a deficit budget of Rs 110.12 crore.

Asserting that the levy would yield Rs 3 to 4 crore and curb 35 per cent of water wastage every month, the Mayor said such levy existed in all municipalities in the state as also in major cities.

He said the KMC was constrained to propose the taxation since operational and maintenance costs of water pumping stations and related sectors had shot up to Rs 154 crore annually.

He said the poor and slum-dwellers would be exempted from the water levy.

His proposal made the opposition Trinamool Congress, Congress and BJP to protest strongly with some of them going to the well and hurling earthen pots.

The Mayor said the KMC would mobilise its own resources to make up the deficit by stepping up its tax collection.