The Visakhapatnam Industrial Water Supply Company (VIWSCO) has sought a steep increase in the price of water being supplied to industries to recover costs and meet the growing expenditure on supply.
At the VIWSCO board meeting here on Wednesday, Municipal Commissioner and its CMD B. Ramanjaneyulu urged APIIC Vice-Chairman and Managing Director B.R. Meena, who is Director of VIWSCO, to increase the rate for supply from Rs.7 to Rs.20 a KL . The VIWSCO supplies water to the RINL, NTPC and APIIC, besides the GVMC.
However, no meeting ground could be reached on the hike and as a result, VISCO was asked to come back with revised rates. The RINL and APIIC were prepared to pay Rs.9.
In his presentation, the Commissioner said the supply cost worked out to Rs.19.26 a KL and the cost of drawing the water without liabilities alone worked out to Rs.9.36.
Mr. Meena said in view of the big gap between the rate proposed by VIWSCO and the one prepared to pay by the industries, revised proposals should be prepared.
If necessary, third party reports should be prepared.
A decision on increasing the rates would be taken at the next board meeting, he said.
Mr. Ramanjaneyulu explained the reasons for the increase in his presentation. VIWSCO was set up with Rs.374 crore contributed in the form of loans by RINL, NTPC and APIIC, besides GVMC itself borrowing Rs.60 crore.
Outstanding interest and penal interest after adjustment of water charges worked out to Rs.81.67 crore. Coupled with maintenance, the total expenditure was put at Rs.179 crore.
While the drawal of water in the last financial year was 42.74 million gallons a day, in the current year it was expected to go up to 62 mgd, Mr. Ramanjaneyulu explained.
Joint Collector M. Girijasankar, APIIC executive director S. Satyanarayana, Zonal Manager G. Durga Prasad, GVMC Chief Engineer B. Jayarami Reddy, Superintendenting Engineer Suryajyothi, RINL Director (Operations) Umesh Chandra, Director (Finance) P. Madhusudhan, General Manger B. Venkateswara Rao, NTPC General Manager G.V. Rao, Anrak Project Manager D. Janardhana Reddy, and Yeleru reservoir executive engineer Sanyasi Naidu participated.
