The tariff for water for the retail consumer in Armenia will remain unchanged in 2018

ArmInfo. The State Water Committee of Armenia has prepared a draft decision, according to which the rise in the price of water tariff in the amount of 11.4 drams per cubic meter (including VAT) will be subsidized from the reserve fund of the Government. This was reported by ArmInfo in the press service of the State Water Committee of Armenia.

According to the press secretary of the State Committee, Sona Martirosyan, within the framework of the Prime Minister's instruction on the need to preserve the tariff for small wholesale water trade, the Committee developed a project according to which the difference of 11.4 drams per cubic meter will be subsidized for retail customers throughout 2018 - from January 1, 2018 to December 31.

As explained by Martirosyan, the single operator of water supply of the company Veolia Djur will provide the volume of actual water consumption by retail consumers for the quarter, after which the Armenian State Committee for Water Resources will apply to the executive body for funding from the reserve fund of the Armenian government.

And, despite the fact that earlier, on November 22, on the day of approval of Veolia Djur's application for raising the water tariff, the head of the water supply and drainage department of the State Water Management Committee of Armenia Armen Sergoyan stated that the difference of 11.4 drams will be compensated by the rent of a single operator in the state budget of the country, this project assumes subsidizing only from the reserve fund of the government. As stated in Goskomvodkhoz, the subsidized amount fits into the reserve fund and will not become an additional burden for the state budget of the country.

Earlier, the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) of Armenia approved a new water tariff from the current 180 drams to 191,414 drams per cubic meter. Of these, the tariff for water supply will be 162.702 drams, and for drainage (water purification) - 28.712 drams. "The company offered to raise the tariff to 194,3 drams," Garegin Bagramyan, head of the Tariff Policy Department of the PSRC, said. The tariff for supply of wholesale drinking water services and drainage will amount to 57,423 drams per cubic meter against the early 47,853 drams. The tariff for the drainage of underground waters of the "Yerevan Metro named after Karen Demirchyan" CJSC will be 11,114 AMD per cubic meter.

Meanwhile, starting from January 1, 2017, the unified water tariff for residents of Yerevan has already been increased from 170,256 drams for 1 cubic meter of water to 180 drams, including VAT. Participants of the process hastened to assure the citizens of RA that the increase comes from their own interests, since the funds will be used to improve the system and expand the service network. As Mushegh Karapetyan, advisor to the Water Supply and Sanitation Department of the State Committee for Water Resources of the Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources, stated at the time, the state policy is to include the unified water supply operator in the service area that has remained until today. Meanwhile, in May this year. the chairman of the State Water Management Committee of Armenia Arsen Harutyunyan told ArmInfo correspondent that today Veolia has no contractual obligations and the community water infrastructure can be transferred under the management of a single operator only after the necessary water system is formed.