Karnataka government mulls differential water tariff structure

Karnataka government is planning to bring in differential water tariff structure to ensure sufficient revenue generation through water charges in order to meet service costs, Water Resources Minister M B Patil said on Monday.

The government has failed to meet the target of generating Rs 92 crore and ended up with just Rs 23 crore, he told reporters in Bangaluru. "The government is also planning to increase revenue generation target from Rs 92 crore to Rs 500 crore, and hence the need for introducing differential water tariff structure," he added.

The government will implement this tariff structure based on the lines of the ones in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra governments, the minister said.

Under this regime, different tariffs will be fixed for different categories of users and based on their location--urban and rural. "Tariffs will be fixed on different categories of users belonging to various sectors, including agriculture and industry, based on water consumed rather than a common tariff for the state as a whole, a practice which is in vogue at present," Patil said.

The minister also said with agriculture sector being a major consumer of water, pricing of this input is one of the basic steps and an integral component in the process of rationalising the totality of the price structure and raising the efficiency of water use.

"The non-implementation of water pricing adversely affects the availability of resources for the management of irrigation systems," he added. Rationalisation of water pricing structure is necessary in the interest of efficiency, Patil said.