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Homeowners reject water price hike

By Zhao Yanrong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-11 07:57

Not a single household in a survey of 250 from 21 communities in Haidian district agrees with a government proposal to immediately raise the price of water by 0.90 yuan to 4.60 yuan per cu m next year.

The survey was conducted ahead of a public hearing which will take place on Dec 16 to hear the municipal government's water hike plan, as well as the alternative of raising the price by 0.30 yuan per cu m every year for the following three years.

Zhu Yufeng, head of the Jinkou neighborhood committee in Haidian district, brought the results of her independent survey to a non-public hearing on water prices on Tuesday.

More than 50 percent of interviewees strongly disagreed with the municipal government's proposal to raise the household water price, with the remaining people saying they prefer it could be gradually raised over 3 years.

The survey also pointed out that public acceptance of a standardized raise was low.

"It is wrong to raise the water price like this," Zhu said yesterday. "Only families who use too much water should pay extra."

Zhu said that some of the families in the survey gardened with water that had been used to wash rice and vegetables. And others stored urine in a barrel to flush in one go.

Zhu suggested that the water price should be related to the amount of water consumed, using a sliding scale system.

"As a representative of residents I suggest that if water consumption is less than 12 ton for a single household each month, the price should remain the same. For water consumption between 12 and 16 tons, households must pay an additional 30 percent.

"From 16 to 20 tons they should pay 50 percent extra and if a household uses more than 20 tons, they should pay double," Zhu told METRO yesterday.

However, the local authority rejected Zhu's suggestion at the meeting with claims that it would make the calculation process too difficult, Zhu said.

Twenty-five resident representatives will attend the public hearing on Dec 16, consisting of 10 public citizens, two representatives of NGOs, two academics, three Beijing People's Congress members, three government officials, two water company owners, one representative of a company that has a large water consumption, and two Beijing People's Political Consultative Committee members.

The list was drawn up by the municipal government.