RAWALPINDI, Aug 22: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has proposed the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to increase water rates and connection charges for both domestic and commercial consumers in a bid to come out of its economic crisis , official sources told Dawn on Sunday.

They said the bank had proposed increase in water charges after conducting a sample socio-economic survey. The survey results had shown that all income groups (lower, middle, high) were willing to pay even more than the bank's proposed charges provided the agency ensured them provision of "urban services of acceptable standard".

About the implementation of the proposed charges, the officials said the bank wanted the agency to install water meters on all connections, starting from the commercial ones. The bank wanted the consumers to be charged according to the ratio of water they consumed instead of the existing billing system of the agency.

At present, the agency charged the people on status basis i.e. consumers with five Marla, 10 Marla or Kanal houses in most of the areas as it had installed only a few thousands water meters in Satellite Town and Khayaban-i-Sir Syed so far.

However, the officials said Wasa also wanted to speed up its drive of installing water metres in the coming days. The ADB had also proposed increase in charges of new domestic connections by Rs200, thereby increasing the rates to Rs2,200 from the present Rs2,000.

Similarly, the bank had proposed Rs400 increase in the non-domestic connections. At present, the agency charged Rs4,000 for the commercial connections, but the bank wanted to increase it up to Rs4,400, the officials said.

Similarly, they said the ADB had also asked the water agency to make an annual 10 per cent increase in the sewerage charges for both domestic and commercial connections. At present, the agency charged Rs500 and Rs2,500 for domestic and commercial connections, respectively.

The bank also asked the civic agency to launch a major awareness campaign to educate its consumers about the importance of paying water charges. The agency had been asked to provide incentives to those who were not paying their dues on regular basis.

The bank had also suggested that Wasa should start offering concession in payment of arrears, besides converting the dues into small affordable instalments.