AAP gives ‘new year gift’ of 10% hike in water tariff to Delhi’ites, additional monthly burden of Rs 500-700 on every household
The Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party President Sh. Vijay Goel today said that the AAP government in Delhi has given an ‘unwelcome gift’ in the new year of 10% hike in water tariff for majority of consumers. More than 8 lakh households will be affected this hike as they will be forced to bear additional monthly burden of Rs 500-700 from January 1, 2014. The party demanded that it should be rolled back immediately.
Sh. Goel said that the BJP leaders who are members of the Delhi Jal Board had registered a note of dissent on the proposed hike in water tariff from January 1, 2014 in the meeting of DJB held yesterday and chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejrwial. But their dissent was brushed aside and the AAP government decided to go ahead with water tariff hike.
“The AAP is continuing with the anti-people clause inserted in DJB rules by the Congress government which increases 10% water tariff every year. The BJP has been demanding removal of this clause for quite some time. Neither the Congress government removed this clause and nor the AAP government is continuing with this clause despite BJP members in DJB asking for its removal.” The party demanded that this anti-people clause of increasing 10% water tariff every year should be removed immediately.
Meanwhile, commenting on the “free water” announcement, Sh. Goel said, residents of unauthorised colonies, JJ clusters and group housing societies will not get any benefit out of this and hence it is more of a ‘cosmetic’ announcement. Most of the jhuggis at JJ clusters do not have functional water meters, the unauthorised colonies do not have piped water supply from DJB and the group housing societies are having a single water meter for the whole society so their consumption will obviously be much more than the prescribed limit though the average consumption of households might be lower than the prescribed limit.
In addition residents of Delhi Cantonment area and NDMC area also won’t get benefit of this announcement. It is clear, thus, that the majority of poor, lower and middle income groups will not get any benefit. The fact is that there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed such as ensuring piped water supply to all household, installing metres, ensuring supply of clean water, repairing of metres which are malfunctioning.
It appears that the new Chief Minister is in a tearing hurry to make some announcements without doing due diligence. Thus the CM has ignored the larger issue of “water tariff hike” and has tried to play to the gallery by making an announcement which actually would bring no benefit to common people of Delhi while not addressing the issue of water tariff hike which will affect majority of households in the city.
On AAP’s anti-media measures
Sh. Goel expressed dismay at the decision of AAP government to not allow journalists to enter Delhi govt secretariat on Monday. He said that he journalists should be allowed free entry to the secretariat as it has been the tradition.
