The civic body has now decided to defer the tax on the municipal's water supply unless a consensus is reached on this with main Opposition, the Trinamool Congress.

Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, "We are open to reaching a decision jointly. We need the help of Trinamool councillors but unfortunately, they are not coming to the table."

He added that Trinamool councillors were invited to accompany a municipality team that had visited Hyderabad last December to check out how water meters function. Bhattacharya said, "A 20-member team went to Hyderabad, including Congress leader Pradip Ghosh. But TMC councillors did not wish to be a part of that delegation."

The initial set of water meters were supposed to be installed by the civic body from the first week of May. Seventy five councillors of the civic body voted in favour of water tax, ruling out the mandate of 42 TMC councillors who had walked out of the Budget session in protest. The decision was passed on the last day of the municipal Budget held on March 17 this year.

The 21 Congress councillors had opted to vote in favour of the tax, with a rider -- the 16 lakh people living in the slums should not have to pay.

The civic body was supposed to forward details on the water service charges to Writers' Buildings. But the plan has not moved an inch after March. The main reason is the stiff opposition from the TMC. An officer of the Water Supply department said the survey for installing water meters has also been kept on hold.

At present, KMC supplies water to 2,68,000 households spread across 141 municipal wards -- over 187 square kilometres of the city. Out of this, only 192 buildings have received water meters. Most of these connections are to tall residential complexes located in the eastern and southern parts of the city. Various commercial centres have also got meters. A two-member team of the water supply department collects the tax from these residential complexes like Meghamallar and Purbasha Housing Society.