The increase announced was across the board and in some categories was as much as 80 per cent, with the minimum charges for commercial esablishments also raised. There was also the announcement that at the beginning of every financial year the water tarrif would be raised by 5 per cent. The last time the water tariff had been increased was in 2015, when it had been doubled. At that time too there was a BJP government in the State, with Laxmikant Parsekar as Chief Minister. That decision was taken to curb water wastage as Goa was registering a loss of around 40 per cent of potable water per day.
The decision to keep the raise in tariff in abeyance came after the Opposition parties slammed the government for the hike during the COVID-19 pandemic and demanded that it be rolled back, especially as it comes at time when people have suffered losses and even banks have announced moratoriums on loan repayment. The Public Works Department defended the move, stating that the hike had been introduced in the last State Budget, and the notification was merely a corollary of that announcement. For now, the hike in tariff stands as the government has not withdrawn the notification or rolled back the announcement, all it has done is that it has kept the decision on hold, with the assurance that the Chief Minister will give it a thought, as and when it is implemented.
It was, however, not just the Opposition that sought that the hike be withdrawn. The Chief Minsiter’s own party too felt that the hike was not something the people should be burdened with, and none other than the State Bharatiya Janata Party president met the Chief Minister asking him to reconsider the decision. While the government can blame the Opposition of making a political issue of the rise in tariff, what can it say when its own party is also on the same page as the Opposition on the issue?
There is a much larger issue here than merely the increase in water tariff. It is about government insensitivity to the people’s woes during the lockdown. What we see here is a government, in the midst of a nationwide lockdown arising out of a pandemic, acting without any concern for the people, and needing to be prodded by the Oppostion and its own party to take rational decisions that will not adversely affect the people. Shouldn’t the government and the bureaucracy have been tuned in to the current distress of the people – both financial and mental? Obviously it was not.
If the government intention is to increase revenue, it can do so by imposing some austerity measures on itself. There is no need to increase water tariff at this troubled moment. But, is the government every thinking of austerity?
For that matter, the administration just last month, in one of its first acts after returning to work following the first lockdown, had circulated the note on raising the budget for vehicle purchase by ministers and bureaucrats. There too, after a public outcry, there was the annoucement that no permissions would be given to purchase new vehicles. Now, in that case and in the water tariff case, these are oral statements, while the written orders still stand. They can be implemented at anytime and the administration will only be acting on written orders when it does act. Why doesn’t the government make these two decsions official by withdrawing them? By doing so it will gain the confidence of the people.
