Bengaluru: Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP) India’s first city-party has issued a strong condemnation of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (BWSSB) latest tariff order, dated September 1, which continues to exploit apartment residents through unfair and discriminatory pricing.

The party has condemned the re-classification of apartment complexes as “bulk consumers,” by the BWSSB wherein families living in apartments are forced to pay three to five times more for water than those living in independent houses. BNP maintains that this classification is fundamentally flawed, as it rests on the illogical assumption that a family’s water consumption increases significantly simply by moving into a multi-dwelling unit.

Srikanth Narasimhan, Founder and General Secretary of BNP, termed the water tariffs as ‘absurd and discriminatory’ and said “Where a family chooses to live should never determine the price they pay for a basic necessity like water. This policy effectively penalizes residents who are actually reducing the BWSSB’s administrative burden.

By utilizing a single connection and one meter for hundreds of households, apartment complexes simplify the board’s infrastructure requirements, yet they are treated as “scapegoats” to fill financial gaps caused by institutional inefficiencies.”

“The BNP asserts that instead of addressing core issues like recovering dues from long-term defaulters or curbing illegal connections, the BWSSB is choosing to burden law-abiding, responsible citizens with inflated and inequitable bills.

BWSSB must shift to household-based billing calculated on average consumption per flat and provide a retrospective revision of tariffs back to April 2025, including full refunds for those overcharged.” Narasimhan added.

Right to Information (RTI) data filed in recent years proves that families in apartment complexes actually consume less water per household on average than those in independent houses.

Despite this, the new tariff slabs effective from April 2025 charge apartments between Rs 24 and Rs 55 per kilolitre, while independent houses pay as little as Rs 8.5 per kilolitre.

BNP highlights that this disparity leads to shocking inequities, as a family using 15 KL of water per month pays approximately Rs 166 in an independent house, but that same usage costs Rs 569 in a 100-flat apartment and jumps to Rs 799 in a 500-flat complex, purely because of their choice of housing.