Power tariff increase puts BWSSB in troubled waters

The year-on-year increase in electricity tariff has left the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) in a fix because its expenditure is only rising while the revenue has stagnated for nearly eight years now.

On Monday, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) approved a five-paise per-unit increase in electricity tariff in Bengaluru. This could increase the BWSSB’s expenditure by at least Rs 2 crore a month.

“In 2014, when we last revised our tariff, our expenditure on electricity was approximately Rs 30 crore a month. During the course of the next eight years, the Bescom tariff has been revised multiple times, forcing us to spend Rs 70-75 crore a month on electricity alone,” a senior BWSSB official said on the condition of anonymity.

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He added that the board’s monthly revenue usually stands at Rs 110 crore while the expenditure goes up to Rs 125 crore.

Besides the Rs 75-crore monthly electricity bill, the BWSSB has overheads such as the expenditure on the regular maintenance of water pipelines and staff wages.

Meanwhile, the government is still sitting on the BWSSB’s nearly two-year-old proposal to increase the water tariff, another official pointed out.

Back in 2020, the BWSSB sought a nearly 10 per cent hike in water tariff for residential buildings and a 15 per cent rise for commercial establishments, said another senior official who did not want to be named. “The proposal has neither been rejected nor okayed. The government sought a clarification a couple of months ago. We have replied to that as well,” the official added.

Citizen activists say things could get better if the BWSSB makes the water supply efficient.

Srikanth Narasimhan, the co-founder of the Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party, asked officials to focus on the effective collection of water bill payments and plug the leakages. “If they just collect the charges more efficiently, they could bring down the tariff instead of rising it,” he explained.

A BWSSB official said the fee collection was returning to normality only now.

“During the peak of the pandemic, many people failed to pay their water bills and we couldn’t force them to pay up considering the financial burden,” the official said, also speaking anonymously.

In April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the BWSSB collected a mere Rs 51.98 crore against the dues of Rs 114.80 crore. The collection stabilised only in the last few months, the official said.

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