As water supply taxes collected by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC)are much lowerthan those of Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay as well as that of neighboring countries, plans are underway to collect water supply taxes systema-tically at reasonable rates by installing water meters. This will also prevent thewastage of water and contribute to reducing the shortage of water, according to the Engineering Department (Water and Sanitation) of the YCDC.
“We need to supply enough water to Yangon. We will set the new rates of water supply taxes. When we persuaded households whose water meters were damaged, some of them did not want to do so while other were not afford to buy water meters. We cannot collect water supply taxes as much as we should due to damaged water meters and suffer losses. We will install water meters systematically. If people have to pay appropriate taxes for the water they will reduce the usage of water. They will value the water they use as they have to pay for it. We are launching awareness-raising campaigns on wastage of water and persuade them to install water meters. We send notifications to them to install water meters three times. If they do not comply, we will take action against them,” said Deputy Director Daw Thwei Naing Oo of the Engineering Department (Water and Sanitation).
Water meters installed in Yangon are of two kinds for household use and commercial use of water and users are required to pay per cubic meter unit. Apartments with damaged water meters are required to pay a fixed rate of Ks-1,800 per month. A total of 360,000 water meters have been installed in 90 percent of households in Yangon and the remaining 10 percent have not installed water meters. The YCDC supplies 205 million gallons of water to the city and it still needs 200 million gallons of water to supply to the entire city.
Currently, water supply taxes in Yangon are much lower than Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay and cities in neighboring countries and the YCDC has planned to raise the water supply taxes to the appropriate levels and to install water meters to reduce the wastage of water. When the water supply taxes have been raised, the public will understand the value of the water they use and water shortages can be prevented, according to the Engineering Department (Water and Sanitation) of the YCDC.