KWA Asks Local Body To Pay Rs 1cr As Monthly Water Bill
As per KWA’s list, there are 5,445 public water taps in Kochi city. In Nov 2025, KWA wrote off Rs 167 crore which thecorporation owed it in bills for public water taps since 2011. The monthly bill comes to around Rs 1 crore.
Therefore, the corporation has decided to identify the public water taps, geotag the functional ones and disconnect others.
The allegation is that the water from the taps is being “misused” by private shops and vendors. The corporation is already finding it difficult to fund the development projects and welfare schemes,” said Vyttila councillor V P Chandran. If so, such connections can be disbanded,” Chandran said. Mayor V K Minimol said the corporation officials have been instructed to conduct the survey. “We will also conduct a joint survey with KWA,” she said.
However, the Kochi corporation has no clear information on which of these taps are functional and who is using the water from these taps. “Now, KWA has demanded the corporation to pay the bills for the past nine months. A few years ago, the corporation and KWA had decided to conduct a joint survey to find out the number of functional public water taps in the city,” Chandran added. “If the survey is conducted, we will be able to know if anybody steals or misuses the water.
The corporation has not brought the issue to their notice so far, according to the KWA officials. The officials said they are ready to cooperate with the local body to conduct the survey. Corporation UDF parliamentary party secretary M G Aristotle said, “KWA is not calculating the bills on the basis of the quantity of water supplied through the public taps.
But they have fixed a rate for each tap. Once the number of functional taps are identified, KWA should give bills based on the quantity of water supplied. This will bring down the bill amount to a great extent.”