MUMBAI, January 18: If you have the luxury of having a toilet in your house, you will have to pay more water tax to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Never mind if you're a resident of an old Low Income Group (LIG) chawl in the suburbs, or a posh flat in a less-than-seven-storeyed building in south Mumbai.Cleverly exploiting a loophole in categorisation of water charges approved by the standing committee last year, the BMC is recovering water tax at the rate of Rs 2 per 1,000 litres of water from residents of chawls, instead of Rs 1.50.
As per category III of the revised water charges effective from June 6, 1997, chawl residents having common toilet facility and taps inside rooms were supposed to pay Rs 1.50 per 1,000 litres of water. This was approved by the standing committee to avoid imposing a financial burden on chawl residents, who generally constitute the low income group.
However, the standing committee forgot that most chawls, especially the World Bank-financed MHADA LIG chawls,
have individual toilets inside single units. ``Instead of treating chawl residents on an even scale, BMC has started collecting Rs 2 from several lakh tax payers only because they have toilets inside their rooms,'' said leader of BJP in the house, Gopal Shetty.
Flooded with complaints of excessive bills from residents of MHADA chawls in Charkop, Shetty dashed off a letter to additional municipal commissioner Sharvaree Gokhale condemning the discrimination against chawl residents and demanding immediate corrective measures.
``Water charges were categorised with only one consideration: the income ratio of consumers staying in different types of accommodations. I have gone through the Water Charges Rules and don't find any mention that chawls having WCs inside rooms will be charged separately. Even before the hike, BMC used to collect Rs 0.60 from all chawl residents in the domestic category, irrespective of whether they had a toilet inside their rooms or not. This practice should be used even now,'' Shetty
said.
However, sources in the BMC hydraulic engineering, and assessment and collection department maintain these residents don't fall under category III of water tariff rates applicable to domestic consumers, as their rooms have attached toilets. ``But now that water charges are already approved at Rs 1.50 only for chawls having a common toilet, our recovery of Rs 2 from chawls with attached toilets is justified. The committee should have thought of it earlier,'' they said.
In fact, officials are overjoyed at the unexpected collection of water charges which amounted to Rs 13 crore more than that estimated by the assessor and collection department after the hike. While the assessor department had estimated an increase in the tax collection by Rs 70 crore, the amount collected till date is Rs 83 crore, due to the tax recovered from people staying in buildings with more than seven storeys.
As per revised charges, BMC increased water charges from Rs 0.60 to Rs 1 for people residing in slums, people
residing in buildings having less than seven floors were charged Rs 2, and those staying in higher buildings were charged Rs 2.50. Earlier, corporators had alleged the administration was recovering more than one rupee as tax from slumdwellers, but this was refuted by the administration.
Meanwhile, additional supply to the city under the Bombay III project has fallen short of expectations. While an additional 100 million gallon litres of water was expected to be supplied to Mumbai by December 1997, only 80 million gallon litres are presently available.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
