KARACHI, Oct 30: The KWSB on Tuesday started issuing water and conservancy bills to its consumers in accordance with new tariff structure whereby the age-old NARV (Net Annual Rental Value) based tariff system has been abolished.

However, the KWSB’s new tariff structure has been made effective from July 1.

Brig Mohammad Behram Khan launched the process of issuance of water bills by pressing the bottom of a computer.

Under the new tariff structure, 1.2 million residential and commercial consumers will now receive two separate bills of different colours i.e. blue coloured bills for water charges and green-coloured bills for conservancy charges/fire tax.

With the introduction of new tariff structure, the billing for water and sewerage charges has been separated from conservancy and fire tax, thereby doing away with the existing system of combined billing.

Earlier, the KWSB used to issue unified bills, containing water charges for KWSB; conservancy/sewerage charges (50 per cent of the amount used to be retained by KWSB and remaining 50 pc was being to the defunct KMC) and fire tax (cent pc amount under this head was being paid to the defunct KMC).

Under the new billing system, the amount which would be received under the head of conservancy charges and fire tax will go to the City government water charges would be retained by the KWSB. It was for this reason that both the bills will show separate bank account numbers of the KWSB and KMC for direct credit of the bills’ amount.

A KWSB spokesman said with a view to ensuring that consumers are provided with water and conservancy charges bills, the new bills will contain acknowledgement slips on which the consumers would be required to affix their signature while receiving such bills from the KWSB’s inspectors.

Highlighting the salient features of the new tariff structure, a KWSB spokesman said all shops, irrespective of their location, would be required to pay only Rs 300 per year (Rs 25 per month) under the head of water charges.

Besides, the unconnected category of billing have been abolished following amalgamation of this category in the new tariff structure, he added.

About the incentives which the KWSB was offering to its consumers following introduction of new tariff structure, he said that the move was aimed at recovering a huge amount of arrears which had accumulated under the NARV-based billing category and it was for this reason that a one-time relief was being provided to all consumers under the NARV category.

These incentives, he said, include 25 per cent discount and waiver of surcharge who would be paying all arrears in lump sum within two months and a 15 pc discount and waiver of surcharge to all those who would be paying in instalments, spreading over a period of six months.

Meanwhile, the KWSB’s deputy managing director (Revenue and Resource Generation), Syed Akhlaq Hussain, has requested consumers that if they fail to receive their water charges / conservancy / fire tax bills within next 15 days, they may get duplicate copies of the same from Awami Markaz, Liaquatabad’s Super Market and the KWSB’s Jamshed Town office, besides they may also lodge their complaints with the director taxes, Mehmood Qadir, on phone No 9230319.