Highrise problem

Ranchi, Nov. 1: Flat-owners at several apartments in the city are crying foul over the civic body’s move to realise pending water tax.

The Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has realised water tax and penalty of previous years from flat-owners at 15-odd apartments for illegitimately using water since many years “without prior knowledge of the civic body”.

The RMC move to levy as much as Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh from the flat-dwellers have “irked” many of them who have levelled charges of corruption against the RMC alleging that it has no power to fix the penalty rate.

RMC administrator R.S. Verma told The Telegraph that the Ranchi Water Board, which functions under the civic body, has realised a revenue of Rs 45 lakh through realisation of pending water taxes and penalties imposed on flat-owners for past water usage.

However, the flat-owners said in reality “they have not utilised the water supplied by the civic authority” as it was “not sufficient to meet the demand of many users”.

In fact, the real estate boom in the state capital during the past decade is the genesis of the present crisis. Originally, the water connection was in the name of land-owner. With the residential plots sold to developers/builders, the onus of paying water taxes for the commodity supplied by the RMC lies on the head of its present dwellers — the flat-owners.

But the 0.5-inch pipewater supply for a single holder remains same for the an apartment housing 28 or even 42 flats. “As the city faces acute water crisis, we were compelled not to disconnect the water supply,” said a flat-owner of a Kanke Road apartment, which has paid Rs 2.66 lakh in total.

Interestingly, all the apartments were put under the non-domestic category.

RMC sources said the water usage have been worked out as 750 litre per family per day. The effective rates of water tax is Rs 5 per 1,000 litres.