Delhi residents free to buy water meter from market: Manish Sisodia

Karam Prakash

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New Delhi, January 11

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday said that Delhi residents would henceforth be able to change their “faulty” water meters by themselves if they wish to.

This decision was taken during the Delhi Jal Board’s (DJB) meeting on Wednesday.

“Earlier, people had to approach the Jal Board to get either a new connection or replacement of the old meter. Now, people will have the freedom to buy it from the market and change it,” said Sisodia, during a press conference on Wednesday.

He added that people were complaining of having the readings wrong and were, therefore, not paying their water bill.

“Earlier, they had to ask the government to change the meter and the process to install a new meter used to take some time. Now, they have the freedom to get it installed by themselves. However, they still can approach the government for it,” said Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Sisodia.

The relaxation is said to have been given by the Delhi Government after it came to the fore that inflated or wrong bills are being generated by meters.

As to the pendency of the water bills, the Deputy CM said that there were 26 lakh water connections in the national capital. Of the total, 18 lakh water connections were regularly paying their bill. “Around 8 lakh customers had not paid their water bill. We had waived the late surcharge of theirs. As a result, around 4.5 lakh people have already paid their pending bill worth Rs 252 crore,” said Sisodia.

However, there were still people who were not paying their bill. “To end the problem of pendency of water bills, due to various issues, the Delhi Government will come up with a one-time settlement policy within a week,” said Sisodia.

10 reservoirs to be built

To ensure 24×7 water supply, Delhi Jal Board gave approval to construct 10 underground water reservoirs (UGR). Of these 10 UGRs, six will be new ones. These UGRs will be built at Okhla, Rajinder Nagar, Patel Nagar, Karol Bagh, Jakhira, Anand Parbat and Naraina. These will benefit nearly 26 lakh people.