Sewerage cess may be reduced back to 15%

SHIMLA: City residents might get some respite from the increased sewerage cess as the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) on Monday raised the issue with Himachal Pradesh ministries of urban development and irrigation and public health (IPH), who have assured to reduce the cess after reviewing it.The IPH department had released a notification increasing the sewerage cess from 15 to 50 percent on water generation bills for total consumption. Unhappy with the decision, residents raised the issue with Benmore ward councillor Anup Vaid and other councillors in the house assembly of SMC which was held on July 31. Most of the Councillors as well as Shimla deputy mayor Tikender Singh Panwar agreed with the residents and passed a resolution in the house for not paying increased cess.After the session, the house wrote a letter to the state government regarding the issue and had sought a reply. However, when they did not receive any reply from the government they had decided to meet the chief minister personally to present him the memorandum. Tikender Panwar said that SMC provides a minimum bill of Rs 47 per thousand liters to the commercial users and the domestic bills are fixed at Rs 250. "The domestic users are now surcharged with Rs 125 sewerage cess and the commercial users are provided bills with surcharge of 50 per cent which has posed an overburden on residents. We presented this issue of enhanced sewerage cess to the IPH minister Vidhya Stokes on Monday on which she had assured to reduce the cess," he added. While some of the Congress councillors too met Himachal Pradesh UD minister Sudhir Sharma on the same day and demanded from him to review the decision of enhancing sewerage cess. They asked him to reduce the sewerage cess from 50 to 15 percent as the increased cess has put heavy financial burden on the people of the town under the periphery of Corporation. Urban development minister Sudhir Sharma assured the state government would consider this issue on priority basis and efforts would be made to find a solution to provide relief to the people of Shimla.