Meters in place, but BMC continues to send water bills on ‘estimated’ costs
DESPITE INSTALLING an automatic meter reading mode to get a report on the exact amount of water supplied to the public by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the civic body continues to send water bills on the basis of “estimated” cost.
Around 44 per cent of water bills across the city is calculated based on estimations, stated the annual report by the chief auditor of the municipal corporation, Suresh Bansode. Only about 56 per cent of the bills are being calculated as per the meter readings, the report added. Around 3,750 million litres of water is supplied through various lakes every day across the city. The residents are supposed to be charged for the water as per the usage. However, for the last 18 to 20 years, the charges levied on the usage have been based on approximate estimated cost, the report stated.
According to the annual report, which has been submitted to the standing committee, 43.89 per cent of water bills are not based on actual usage. The report added that bills were compiled based on previous years usage as many water meters have not been functioning. However, instead of fixing them, the BMC is sending estimated bills. The BMC had installed automatic water meters starting from 2010-11. The total number of meters was 54,990 in 2010-11, whereas in 2012-13 , around 77,876 water meters were installed.
During the audit, it was noticed that the civic body has stored about 13,45,743 million litres of water during 2012-13, out of which, 10,29,731 million litres was supplied throughout the city. However, around 16 per cent leakage was reported while supplying water, about 7 per cent of water was lost during water processing and 5 per cent leakage was reported during transportation. The total water lost due to leakage comes to 28 per cent. While 20 per cent loss of water by leakage is expected at different levels, there was an additional leakage of 22,687 million litres of water, according to report. It added that due to the extra leak during that period. BMC suffered a loss of Rs 14.52 crore.
When contacted, BMC hydraulic engineer Ashok Kumar Tawadiya said, “These bills are not escalated but based on three estimations we usually use for compiling bills in case meters are non functional. We consider Last Year Consumption (LYC), total water consumption trend and total water requirement. We are planning to verify all these factors and work on the issue soon.”
For all the latest Mumbai News, download Indian Express App