NATIONAL sewerage company, Indah Water Konsortium (IWK), hopes the government will increase sewerage tariff rates in the first quarter of next year.

Its chief executive officer, M. Narendan, said a proposal for the tariff increase had been presented to the Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry.

“For 25 years there had been no increase in sewerage services rates ... currently the operating cost is RM18 per household, but we charge only 8 sen per cubic metre and this is among the lowest in the world.

“We have submitted our proposal and are just waiting for the government to respond, we hope to get an approval,” he said after launching a special book titled ‘Spurring the Nation’ in conjunction with the company’s 25th anniversary in Kuala Lumpur today.

He also assured that the proposed amount was minimal and would not burden the public. 

Narendan said the company had submitted two options, the first to streamline the tariff for all domestic service categories to RM8 while excluding the low-income (B40) group and those registered under e-Kasih.

The second option was a RM2 increase for each category.

On the integration of water and IWK sewerage billing, Narendan said the signing of a joint-billing agreement with one of the water operators would be held this Friday and its implementation is expected to begin next year.

“Apart from facilitating ease of payment for customers the move also aims to increase efficiency in  annual collection rate by up to 90% as currently collection rate is at 57%,” he said. – Bernama, December 17, 2019.