Bloc gives Mayor a breather

The Bloc had earlier gheraoed the Mayor and had demanded withdrawal of the proposed tax.

The Mayor, however, had to face the wrath of the Opposition benches as 20 councillors belonging to the Congress boycotted the final day of the budget session over it. The councillors of the Trinamool Congress also joined the Congress in opposing the water tax.

“We will not be able to avail the funds of the JNNURM if we do not impose water tax since it is a mandatory pre-condition,” said Bhattacharya.

Next week, the KMC is expected to hand over the proposal of introducing water tax to the state government for approval.

The KMC provides water connection to 2,68,000 domestic households. Out of this, 20 mm ferrule size is present in 11,055 households. About 9,090 households contain ferrule of 25 mm size. This does not form even 8 per cent of the total number of domestic household connections in the KMC area.

An 11-member team of the KMC had visited several municipal corporations of south India to get the know how of the functioning of water meters in metros like Bangalore and Hyderabad. But the CPM-backed KMC is in a fix on how to go about the task of billing the consumers.

There is still a host of uncertainty about who should be brought under the purview of the water tax— the land lord or the tenant.

The daily water supply generated by the boosting stations is 300 million gallons per day. But, 35 per cent of this amount does not reach the consumer due to leaks from pipelines and unauthorised taps.

The daily water demand in Kolkata is 290 million gallons.