Mumbai: Mumbaikars may have to shell out more money on their water bills starting from June 16. The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), as part of its annual exercise, likely to introduce new revised charges on water for its domestic and commercial consumers. Confirming the same, the civic Hydraulic Department's Chief Engineer Ajay Rathod said, "We have drafted the proposal and sent it to the commissioner for consideration. Only after the higher-ups approve, then the revised charges on water tax will come into effect."
According to a 2012 resolution by the BMC, it can hike the tax on the water every year by up to eight per cent.
A civic official who did not wish to be named stated, "Due to the pandemic, corporation may accept the proposal and introduce new charges or disapprove it. But the fact remains that the corporation has been putting a lot of efforts to control COVID cases. It has set up COVID care centres but now along with providing efficient medical services, the authority also needs to focus on its earnings, which is only through levying various types of taxes, getting premium money or development charges from real estate projects, etc. Due to pandemic, the cash-strapped realty sector has become more vulnerable and there will be hardly any new projects to come up. Octroi, which was for decades the BMC’s income source, now replaced with the universal Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the body is yet to receive its part from the state. Therefore, the other source of income remains before the BMC is imposing water, sewage and property tax."
Previous year, the BMC had revised the water tax to 2.48 per cent increasing the charges to Rs 5.22 per 1,000 litres of water from Rs 5.09. While the sewage rates also increased at 70 per cent of total water charges.
Mumbaikars are supplied water from seven lakes and dam reservoirs named Tansa, Upper and Middle Vaitarna, Tulsi, Vihar, Modak Sagar and Bhatsa. The corporation supplies 3,800 million litres of water every day to the residents of Mumbai which still falls short of the actual demand of 4,200 million litres.
