PANAJI
Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Nilesh Cabral has assured that the government's scheme of providing up to 16,000 litres of water to consumers for free will be extended to those residing in multi-dwelling buildings and housing societies.
Cabral also said that the excess amounts paid by consumers thus far will be adjusted towards future bills.
The minister's assurance came in response to a memorandum he was presented by a delegation of Margao's Shadow Council, a pressure group on civic issues.
The memorandum had questioned the methodology of the PWD in billing multi-dwelling residential buildings and housing societies for water consumption arguing that the benefits of the 16000 litres of free water scheme were not being applied.
According to the Shadow Council's convenor, Savio Coutinho, the PWD's water supply department had adopted a software for billing consumers residing in multi-dwelling buildings which did not conform to the notification issued in August last year when the government introduced the free 16,000 litres scheme.
The notification provides that for common domestic water connection where two or more houses/flats/duplexes are occupied, the basis for calculating tariff shall be the number of houses/flats/duplexes.
In instances where the common water connection supplies to multiple residential units, tariff will be charged by dividing the total consumption by the number of units.
However, bills issued followed the principle of the 16 units(16000 lts) being multiplied by the number of dwelling units, thus ending up with a huge difference in units billed and those actually consumed.
The free 16,000 litres scheme, however, will be application only to those residential buildings or societies where monthly consumption is less than the prescribed 16,000 litres per dwelling unit.
