It’s final, Chandigarh residents will pay for faulty water meters
Chandigarh MC House decides ₹2,000 cost will be recovered through water bills; consumers told to get meters replaced within a month or face penalty
The cost to replace faulty water meters will be recovered from residents, the Chandigarh municipal corporation decided during its General House meeting on Tuesday.
Around 42,000 water meters in Chandigarh have been lying defective for the past five years. As a result, consumers have been getting a flat bill irrespective of the water consumption. Since March, MC has been issuing notices to consumers to get the meters replaced.
As per the civic body’s plan, the consumers will have to pay around ₹2,000 to cover the cost of the water meter, testing charges and installation. The charge will be recovered from the consumers through their water bills. In case the water meter is not replaced within a month, penalty will be levied.
In the proposal, MC said, “There are around 42,000 defective water meters of consumers and the water bills are being raised on average reading basis as per the provision of Chandigarh Water Supply Bylaws 2011, which were further amended from time to time. Due to average billing, there is a lot of wastage of drinking water and water revenue is not being realised on actual consumption basis. Now, it will be responsibility of the consumers to get the faulty or defective water meter replaced within one month, otherwise recovery on panel rate will be charged from the consumers. Further, the meter will be replaced by MC and the cost of water meter, in addition to labour charges for disconnection and installation and testing fee, will be recovered from the consumers with the water charges bill.”
MC officials also said so far, as many as 9,794 notices had been issued to consumers to replace the defective meters, but only 2,386 had responded. Of these, 1,769 meters had been replaced.
It is pertinent to mention that in 2000, the civic body had approved a similar agenda, following which Consumers Association Chandigarh had approached the Punjab and Haryana high court. Subsequently, in 2001, the high court had directed MC to install water meters by itself and directed them to refund the cost of the water meter to the consumer through bimonthly bills.
