Pune dry spell: Rs 100 hike on tankers no more; PMC hopes benefit will trickle down to consumers

Girish Bapat

After meeting the tanker owners and PMC officers, Guardian minister Girish Bapat said that tanker owners have called off their strike after the demand of reducing charges was accepted. It was decided that the private tankers should charge Rs 1,150 per trip at a distance of 0 to 3 km, Rs 1,200 between 3 km and 6 km, and Rs 1,250 between 6 km and 10 km, said a press statement of district information office.

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“The citizens should not suffer due to private water tankers going on strike in protest of increase of refilling charges. Thus, the water charges be reduced by Rs 100 per refill,” said mayor Prashant Jagtap in response to the issue raised by all party corporators in general body meeting.

The private tankers have been charging Rs 1,100 to Rs 1,600 from citizens for one trip and they were likely to increase the charges had the rates gone up, said corporators. The private tanker owners had cited expenditure on fuel, maintenance of tanker along with salary of driver for their charges recovered from citizens. “The PMC should take action against the private tankers for charging more from citizens,” said RPI (A) Siddarth Dhende.

Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar said the civic administration would install GPS and track the movement of water tankers, hired for civic duty, before paying their rental.

He also informed that the civic staff would donate their one day salary for the measures of drought relief undertaken by the state government. The municipal commissioner further assured the general body that the civic administration would not give any new permission for digging of roads from April 30 so that the roads would be repaired by the start of monsoon.

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