Nagpur Municipal Corporation starts categorization of water

Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s Water Works Department has started categorization of water consumers to ensure bills as per consumption.
Currently, Water Works Department is having 1,64,302 consumers. There are three categories of consumers including residential, Government institutions, and commercial. There was confusion about residential category. The consumer using water for only residence purpose falls under residential category. But there are many buildings or flat schemes where shops or commercial establishments and residences co-exist. According to Nagpur Municipal Corporation officials out of total flat schemes in the city, as many as 10 per cent are having commercial establishments also. These include private clinics, consulting chambers, small banks, offices etc. These type of consumers were also charged as per residential tariff as the entire building or flat scheme was having only one water connection.
Similarly, there was also confusion in commercial category. The consumers who were using water as raw material such as water bottling plants, ice factories, soft drink bottling plants, beverage industries, artificial juice plant, pharmaceutical industries, amusement parks, and water parks, were charged commercial tariff along with commercial establishments like hotels, private hospitals, educational institutions, banks, offices etc.
Nagpur Water Works Department had rationalized water tariff. The categories were increased to 5 including residential, and semi-residential instead of erstwhile residential; commercial-I, and commercial-II instead of erstwhile commercial. Government institutions category-institutional was kept as it is. The State Government approved the regularization of water tariff in April. After approval, the department started charging the rates as per commercial tariff to the entire building or flats having commercial establishments as the entire building or flats having commercial establishments as the entire building or flat scheme was having one connection. The residences located in those buildings or flats were also required to shell more money as the semi-residential tariff was higher than residential tariff. As per revised tariff, the residential tariff for 8 to 15 units is Rs 8 per unit, and the semi-residential tariff for upto 15 units is Rs 13.
The Nagpur Water Works Department started receiving large number of complaints regarding high water bills in July and August as the bills for three months including April, May and June were issued in this manner. Considering this, the issuing of water bills was stopped. First, the department conducted a survey of commercial consumers. According to survey, the Nagpur Water Works Department categorized the consumers of commercial category into commercial-I and commercial-II as per usage. Due to single connection, the categorization was easy. After this, the department started issuing the bills to commercial-I and commercial-II consumers in August.
Now, the categorization of residential category into residential and semi-residential has been started. Under this, the authorities have started inspecting the buildings or flat schemes. The buildings or flat schemes where there are only residences have been categorized in residential category and the department has started issuing water bills to these consumers. Where there are both commercial establishments and residences, the department has started survey. After survey, the commercial establishments will be given separate connection and meter. Then the bills for three months- April, May and June will be issued. It is expected that the entire categorization will take atleast one month. Nagpur WWD officials hope that their revenue will definitely increase with this categorization.