Fadnavis said that the Center has assured to waive off the water bill.
The Miraj to Latur water train project's biggest dilemma has been cleared. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday told dna that the Centre had assured to wave off the water bill.
Fadnavis said that railway minister Suresh Prabhu had given this assurance since the water was transported by railway taking into account the alarming water scarcity situation in Marathwada, especially in Latur.
The now discontinued Miraj-Latur water rake - Jaldoot, got railways a lot of applause for carrying 25.95 crore litres of water over 111 trips to the parched town. The transport bill for 111 trips which started on April 11 amounted to Rs 12.2 crore. A total of 5190 wagons trips, each carrying 50000 litres of water were made, said railway officials. As reported first by dna in its July 8 edition, the railways has pegged the cost of each trip of the Miraj-Latur water rake - Jaldoot at Rs 11 lakhs or about 45 paise per litre.
The central railway authorities, in May, sent a Rs4 crore bill to the Latur district administration and then due to the brickbats from political parties, railways had to hastily sent out a press release claiming that the bill was just a part of the accounting procedure for rail freight transport and that the bill was sent on request of the state government.
Under special accounts mechanism allowed by the railway board's directorate of traffic commercial (rates), CR was allowed to load water at Miraj station with the district magistrate (DM) of Sangli being designated sender and DM of Latur as receiver. The speciality of this arrangement was that payment could be done on a 'To-Pay' basis, which meant that the payment of all water transport could be done later.
The numbers game:
Total trips of water rake- 111
Total water transported - 25.95 crore litres
Cost per trip - Rs 11 lakh
Total cost approx- Rs 12.21 crores
Cost of water transport per litre - 45 paise
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 "Devendra Fadnavis")
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