Treading cautiously ahead of the elections to the council after four months, the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) council in its meeting on Wednesday approved the hike in water tariff for non-domestic, commercial/industrial connections leaving domestic users untouched.
The five-year term of the elected council ends in mid-March, 2019. Keeping the coming elections in mind, the ruling Congress did not hike the water tariff for domestic connections. The Opposition BJP, which lost the last elections to the Congress, also did not press for it.
The council also agreed to hike the tariff for water supply connections for building constructions.
In addition, it passed the hike in the tariff for Mulki town panchayat, Ullal city municipality, Bala and Chelyar gram panchayats and for Father Muller Charitable Trust for its hospital at Thumbe for supplying water from the Thumbe vented dam built across the Nethravathi.
The hike will come into effect after the council ratifies the approval next month and later the corporation issues a notification on the same.
A note tabled in the meeting of the council said that as per the Urban Water Supply and Drainage Policy, 2003, urban local bodies across the State are required to periodically revise water tariff to match current operation and maintenance costs.
Accordingly, the government last issued an order to revise the water tariff on July 20, 2011 by approving revised tariffs.
However, the hike approved on Wednesday is not from retrospective effect from 2011.
With no change in tariff, domestic users in Mangaluru will now continue to pay a minimum of ₹65 for the first 24,000 litres as against ₹218 mooted by the State government per month.
But the monthly minimum tariff for non-domestic users in Mangaluru has been hiked from ₹304 for the first 18,000 litres to ₹360 for the same quantity of water. Thus the minimum tariff has been hiked from ₹26 per a kilo litre (KL) (1,000 litres) of water to ₹34 per KL.
The monthly minimum tariff for commercial/industrial users has been hiked from ₹608 per 18,000 litres to ₹730. Thus the hike per a KL of water was up from ₹52 to ₹60. Those availing water supply for constructing buildings would now have to pay a minimum of ₹1,200 per 20,000 litres per month against ₹1,040 earlier. The hike per KL of water will be from ₹52 to ₹60.
The tariff for Mulki town panchayat and Ullal city municipality has been hiked from ₹5 per a KL of water to ₹7. Bala and Chelyar gram panchayats would now have to pay ₹7 per a KL of water against ₹3 earlier.
The Father Muller Charitable Trust would have to pay ₹7 per a KL of water for its hospital at Thumbe against ₹6 earlier.