Free water scheme stopped due to misuse by consumers, says Sawant

Panaji: Chief minister Pramod Sawant on Monday said that the scheme of free water to consumers, if they curb their usage to 16,000 litres per day, had to be stopped due to misuse of the water. He said that govt is already supplying treated water to consumers by bearing a loss of Rs 16 per litre.“We want to bring down the loss of water during supply to 20%. Lot of people do not know this, they think we get the treated water free of cost which we are supplying to them. But it costs us Rs 20 per litre to treat the water. Earlier, we used to supply treated water free of cost to 40% consumers. Now we have stopped that scheme. Why did we stop it, people started misusing it,” said Sawant.Goa govt officially ended its zero bill scheme on May 1.

The scheme, introduced in Aug 2021, allowed families using less than 16,000 litres of water per month to receive water free of charge.“We are treating water for Rs 20 per litre, but supplying it at Rs 4 per litre. So, it costs us Rs 16 per litre. I am just talking of the cost to treat the raw water, not even calculating the cost of payment to engineers and for laying of supply pipelines. We are bearing Rs 16 loss per litre. People should use water judiciously.

They should not misuse the water to wash their cars or water their gardens,” said the CM after launching a Rs 21 crore project to improve water supply to Agasaim, Bambolim and Nauxim.He said the project will be completed within one-and-a-half years and will involve the construction of a 2,000m ground level reservoir and a 650m overhead reservoir, to enhance water supply to St Andre constituency.The CM also said that a scheme to preserve traditional salt pans in Goa will be introduced soon.“People who produce salt in salt pans in a traditional method are part of our biodiversity. We need to preserve and promote these salt pans and production of this traditional salt and we will preserve it. There are more than 50 salt pans in St Andre, as informed by MLA Viresh Borkar,” he said.