JOIN US If you have paid an additional 25-50% on your water bills in the last two months, you are among the 1.17 lakh property owners in the city who have been penalised for not adopting rainwater harvesting.
After the state government amended the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage (Rainwater Harvesting) Regulations 2011 early this year to make it more powerful, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), armed with the new guidelines, has collected a little more than Rs 30 lakh in July and August as penalty.
“Rs 17.33 lakh was collected as penalty in July and around Rs 13.27 lakh in the first three weeks of August,” a senior BWSSB official told DH.
Early this year, BWSSB was empowered to levy a penalty of additional 25% on the water bill (domestic connections) for the first three months and double the amount from the fourth month. Similarly, the penalty is 50% on non-domestic connections. “We have identified about 1.17 lakh properties, measuring 60x40 sq ft and 30x40 sq ft (constructed after 2009) which are supposed to harvest rainwater. This is in addition to the 61,749 properties, both domestic and non-domestic connections, which already harvest rainwater in the city limits,” he said.
BWSSB supplies water to 9.14 lakh metered and unmetered connections excluding 110 villages (five zones) which were added to the city limits in 2007.
BWSSB Engineer-in-chief Kempramaiah said the Board has spent Rs 5 crore to build and maintain the Sir M Visvesvaraya Rainwater Harvesting Theme park in Jayanagar V Block in addition to organising awareness programmes. “The Board has spent a lot of money to popularise rainwater harvesting and training our staff. We will use a portion of the penalty to take up similar programmes,” he said.
Rs 2.42 cr arrears
Cash-strapped BWSSB has raked in Rs 2.42 crore in the arrears collection drive on August 17. The south division tops with collections of Rs 62.40 lakh. With this, the Board was able to collect a total of Rs 6.42 crore in August so far. Details of collection in the last week is as follows: South division (Rs 62.40 lakh), East division (Rs 33.97 lakh), South-West (Rs 26.34 lakh), West (Rs 24.31 lakh), North-West (Rs 23.86 lakh), South-East (Rs 23.10 lakh), North division (Rs 16.10 lakh), Central (Rs 16.30 lakh) and North East
(Rs 15.63 lakh).