Hike in water rates

THE recent debate on the enhancement of water rates in the Punjab Legislative Council is chiefly interesting as it reveals the mentality of a large majority of the rural members of our legislature. The whole of the government’s case for the enhancement of the abiana was based on the contention that there was a normal recurring deficit in the provincial budget which, in spite of the adjustments and retrenchments that had been effected, could not be met without additional taxation. There was no genuine attempt on the part of the rural members, who constitute a majority in the council, to controvert this statement. On the contrary, they practically accepted this contention of the government during the debates on the Bills for imposing additional taxes on the urban population of the province, and almost unanimously voted in favour of those measures. In the matter of the proposed enhancement of the water rates, however, which touched their own interests, the rural members who were all for taxing the urban population took up a wholly inconsistent and untenable position. On the one hand, most of them expressed their unwillingness to cut down expenditure; and, on the other hand, they pleaded that the zamindars should not be made to pay more for the use of the water supplied to them by the government. Most of the members, indeed, apologetically referred to the necessity of bringing forward the resolution for reducing the enhanced water rates, probably on account of the difficulty of reconciling their attitude during the budget debate with their present demand for not increasing the water rates.