I am connected to the city mains for my water supply, as are you I guess, if you are somewhere in urban India. The bill comes to me once a month. I do not even bother looking at it and pay it because it is that small, until now that is. While traveling in a bus to Mysore (btw I live in Bangalore) and the battery on my mobile phone dead the only option was reading to amuse myself. I dived into my purse to get some money for a magazine and came out with an old water bill. Read the magazine- not interesting- then started to read the water bill out of sheer boredom.

Now this was hugely interesting. Let us see what it tells me about the water supply provider in our fair city, Bangalore.

Firstly that I get a bill looks like I have to pay on volumetric consumption. Ah ha, not many cities do that. They collect a flat tariff or charge it on the property tax. Experts agree that volumetric tariff is good because you pay for what you get.

You are rewarded for good behaviour i.e. less consumption and punished for over consuming. Great beginning for Bangalore's water supply and sewerage board or is Bangalore Water and Sewage Supply BoardJ.

The reverse side of the bill first if you please. It talks about a sanitary cess. Hmmmm.. I pay for my sewage too, very funny. I flip the bill around, hey I consume less than 25,000 litres every month, just 7000 litres this month and so I pay a flat sum of Rs 15 for all the shi… that I send into the drain. Pretty cheap huh.

Then I come down , what's this? A differential slab for my water bill. If I consume less than 8000 litres I pay at Rs 6 / a kilolitre. So now that I have consumed 7 kilolitres (7000 litres) my bill should be 6 x 7 = Rs 42 ah ha a right royal sum. Hey but these guys charge me Rs 48/-? How come? That is a minimum then. So I harvest rain, use it and consume less but I pay Rs 48 /- nonetheless. Might as well have consumed the 1000 litres . Would've been free for me. .. and where is the incentive for harvesting rain? Let it be.

But lookat, the guys in the hotel business pay something called non domestic rates which is high and the industrial consumers are rogered . They pay Rs 60/= on top of which is a cess of 20%. That is Rs 72/- a kilolitre. No wonder industries move to a bore well or a private water tanker. That water costs a lot less.

But what's this? A bore well cess of Rs 50 /- a month per house. Thanks god I do not have one. So these guys must have a count of the number of bore wells in the city or at least wherever they have extended their connection. Very interesting. Now if they could put a meter to the bore wells at least we would know how much groundwater is being consumed in this city. Got to work on that with these guys.

There is message on the bill to conserve water. Are these people serious? In Kannada there is a dire warning not to employ child labour. Wonderful, look at the social concern of these guys. But wait no 'lifeline ' water for the poor. 6000 litres per month per family free. Like in South Africa that would have been good.

Now the front side of the bill. The bottom line says -if payment is not made by the due date then disconnection process will be initiated. Hey what was the last date for payment? 27/09/2006 . I see on the top right side. Good that I have paid on time. These guys are also gentle. They at least don't say that they will disconnect. Only begin a process. Hopefully there will be a notice. I generally am late for everything so people like me deserve a notice. Is there a fine or a late payment fee? hmmm… nothing about that. Got to find out more from the sub division I guess. Which is it? N3 it says in the bill. Informative. What does N-3 and RR no. and consumer i.d mean. ? I'm a number I guess and I know what that means?

There is a meter reading date and last date for payment is 15 days from that day. Great ,15 days is a lot of time, but do these guys send me the bill on the date of the reading itself? Gotta check that sometime. Then there is the water charge. That I understand and a meter charge of Rs 10/-? Hey I pay for the meter too. The meter costs about Rs 600 /- methinks. Do these guys stop after 60 months and after they have collected Rs 600/- Nope . I built my house in 1994 and this is circa 2006 and yet the meter charge appears on my bill. Must be for the meter reading for sure. Oh alright about that one then.

What is this item S.C for bore wells? Sanitary charge looks like. If I use water from a bore well obviously the sewage goes to the system for which these guys are responsible.

So a sanitary cess on bore well water use. Rs 50/- a month too. If only these people could put a meter on the bore well they would have known exactly how much sewage is entering the system from the bore well water not to mention how many such bore wells are used in the city. Bangalore is one of the first city in India to do this, identify borewells in a city. Great going guys.

Hey there is an arrears of Rs 4/ What happened? I didn't pay 4 bucks to these guys last month? .. and they keep tabs on that. Wonderful.

I see that I can pay my bill 24 hours at their kiosks. That is great. I get water 2 hours every alternate day but these guys collect money 24/7.

Finally there is some kind of bar code at this end. Modernity and swiping machines I guess.

Now how many cities in India have this kind of a bill and this kind of a water supply? Would be good to compile.

Guys and girls please help and send me your water bills. Just a copy will do from any town India. We'll discuss that in the coming blogs.. that is if you are not fed up with this one :)

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