Nagpur Municipal Corporation to have its own drinking water brand

Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is mulling over a proposal to set up its bottling plant to provide packaged drinking water to the citizens. The civic body will provide the bottled water at a very competitive rate as compared to similar products available in the market. This may open a new avenue of generating revenue for cash-strapped NMC.

Highly placed sources in NMC claimed that the Nagpur Environment Engineering Services Limited (NESL) had taken a decision in the year 2016 to set up a bottling plant at Nagpur to sell bottled drinking water.

It may be mentioned that several brands are already selling packaged drinking water at quite a higher rate. The civic body is suppliying 1,000 litres of water for Rs. 8, while big brands are charging around Rs 18-20 for one litre water bottle, using NMC's water.

A senior officer said, "We may sell one litre water bottle at Rs. 10 to the consumer. Our product will be cheaper as compared to other products in the market. NMC can generate a huge profit from selling bottled water. The bottling plant will be installed at Gorewada Water Treatment Plant (WTP) and raw water available at the WTP will be used for bottling. The civic body may initially install bottling plant of 2,000 bottles capacity. The main concern is about marketing and we are appointing a consultant to guide us for the marketing and production of the water bottle. We may also provide space to other companies to bottle the water and sell it in the market at the rates decided by the civic body. We will share the profit margin."

The officer hoped that this would pave way for the new revenue generation for the cash strapped NMC.

Presently, the civic body is struggling with the finances and it is mulling all the proposals to increase its revenue. The collection from Property Tax and Goods and Services Tax (GST) is meager as compare to the development pace of the city.

This news is from The Hitvada paper dated 9th March 2018