PANAJI: Residents in several parts of Socorro and Sangolda suffered a surprise in their lives after they received water bills for October which showed a cost of six times.
Convinced by Chief of Minister of Goa Pramod Sawant a few months ago that they did not need to pay for pipelines since September 1, PWD water consumers, most of them hold the blue collar work, wondering how to pay the bill.
Sangolda Resident Saraswati (name changed), who used to get an average RS 500 water bill, suddenly found him staring at Bill from Rs 3,387.
“I went to the staff at the Porvorim office, which told me that there must be a leak.
If there is a leak, why the previous bill was lower? I asked him whether we should spend all our income to pay water bills, which he snapped back and told me to complain to the government, “he said.
Two months ago, Sawant has announced that Goa will become the first country in the country to supply free water to its citizens.
He has launched a scheme ‘save water to get free water where households will not be charged for consumption of up to 16,000 liters per month.
When TOI reaches a PWD official, he explained that the bill can be on the higher side if the billing period is more than 30 days.
He said that because of Covid-19 pandemic, a meter reader would not go to certain areas where high infection.
“If the locality has a high number of Covid-19 cases, the meter reader itself can sign a virus, and thus, meter readings are not taken for one or two months,” said the unauthorized official gave a statement.
PWD issued water bills for 30-45 days, but in this case, the Bill Saraswati for 70 days.
Some other Porvorim residents also complained about receiving increased water bills, but Ti could not get a copy of the bill.
They complained that remembering erratic water supply, increased bills did not make sense.
“Like that, the water flow is a drop of drops and inventory, so we have to draw water from our neighbor’s well,” Saraswati said.