KOCHI: Kochi corporation and Kerala Water Authority (KWA) have started a joint inspection to identify live public water taps in the city. It is to settle a dispute between the KWA and corporation over the number of public water taps in the city that the joint inspection is being conducted.
Kochi corporation is to pay the bills of water supplied through public taps in the city. Corporation has to pay huge sums of money as water bills even while most of the public water taps in the city had been either scrapped or become defunct several years ago.
According to the corporation authorities, many of the defunct water taps are being including in the metering system of the KWA and hence the huge bills. “We started the joint exercise on Monday. We have already geotagged around 80% of the water taps in the city.
So, there is no confusion over it. Still, there is dispute over the remaining 20% of the public water taps for which we send bills to the corporation,” an official with KWA said. “We expect that the inspection can be completed by next month,” the official said.
The KWA bills which are due for the past many years come to more than Rs 40 crore. As the corporation defaulted the amount over the years, the state government has started deducting the amount due to the KWA from plan fund allocation to the civic body.
The amount is being deducted in instalments. As per an earlier claim by KWA, there are around 5,900 public water taps in the city whereas the local body authorities put the number at 4,000. According to the councillors, more than two third of the 4,000 water taps are not functioning. If a joint inspection is carried out, the amount owed to KWA would come down by at least one third, they say.
