Amidst complaints of water tanker prices breaching the ₹2,000 mark for the first time in the city, the State government has made self-registration of the vehicles mandatory by March 7 as a first step towards regulating the industry.
Following meetings with multiple stakeholders over the next two days, the government will also fix prices for tanker loads, said Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Civic Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath on Wednesday (February 28).
“Following several complaints of water tanker prices skyrocketing over the last 15 days, we have decided to regulate the industry,” he said.
Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar recently said in the Assembly that 25% of the city’s water needs were being met by water tankers, and the government was mulling fixing the maximum price for water tankers.
Mr. Giri Nath said as the water tanker business is not categorised as a trade, tankers haven’t been registered either with the BBMP or the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). But data from the Transport Department show that over 3500 water tankers are operating in the city.
“We are developing an online platform which will go live on March 1. All water tankers have to self-register on this platform by March 7. From that date, all unregistered water tankers will be seized by the civic body and will be used to supply water to dry pockets free of cost in 110 villages,” he said.
Maximum price to be fixed
Mr. Giri Nath said the BBMP is calling up all water tanker operators, and they will hold a consultation meeting with them over the next two days on the price-fixing mechanism. “We do not want them to make losses. But in some pockets, the pricing has been very predatory. We will ask them to submit their costs, while we are also calculating the same based on market intelligence. Based on both inputs, we will arrive at a maximum price range for water supplied through tankers in the city. Any deviation from this will be penalised,” he said.
When quizzed on the legal basis as to how these norms will be enforced, he said that since the State government had declared three taluks of Bengaluru Urban district as drought-hit, they had special powers under The Disaster Management Act, 2005, which will be invoked to take stringent action.
Tanker dealers unhappy
Water tanker operators The Hindu spoke to, on condition of anonymity, said there was widespread opposition to the government fixing the price of water tankers. “Contrary to popular perception, we are not making money unwarrantedly. We are travelling 50 km both ways to deliver a tanker of water and the price of water extraction has gone up several times. It is wrong to portray us as a “mafia” and try to shift blame from the government’s failure to provide water supply infrastructure to us,” a water tanker businessman from East Bengaluru said.
Another dealer from South East Bengaluru said that they did not have a pan-city level association or union to argue their case, and that had now come to bite them. “We are a very unorganised sector. I think the time has come for us to form a union to negotiate with the government and protect our interests,” he said.
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