NEW DELHI: As Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal faces people’s wrath on the colony regularisation issue, the AAP appears to be in damage control mode. On Sunday, marking a year of assuming power, it announced it would waive huge outstanding water bills of consumers living in unregulated colonies.
The proposal was created on the CM’s advice and aimed at waiving all the outstanding dues till last November of customers with functional water meter connection.
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) had to collect Rs 2,854 crore, including Rs 923 as late payment surcharge, from around 11.87 lakh consumers living in these colonies across Delhi.
The proposal stated that the waiver of late payment surcharge and slab-wise waiver on accumulated arrears would be based on the category of colonies on the basis of the municipal corporation property tax.
As DJB does not maintain its data based on categorisation of colonies for property tax, the board will have to carry out an intense exercise to classify and tag the revenue consumer data base for effective implementation of the scheme.
Soon after coming to power, the AAP government came with the scheme of providing 20,000 litres of water free of cost to every household per month. To give 20,000 litres of free water, the government gives around Rs 500 crore subsidy to Delhi Jal Board. The new proposal announced, will increase the burden on the state exchequer.