Collection of waters from Vidrovan

On the eve of Christmas, Nikšići Vodovod "made happy" the citizens of Nikšić by handing them bills for December 2021, calculated according to the new price list. Why did the water price go up in December?! They are not surprised because they have millions of unpaid claims and a considerable number of redundant employees, and they are used to regular and decent salaries, without the "Europe Now" program and before it. Forced collection of claims and disconnection of irregular payers from the water supply network were also carried out on rainy autumn days, taking the last household supplies of money from citizens. According to whispers in the city, they even excluded small "farmers" in suburban settlements. Who is to blame for accumulating debt? Water supply, consumers and a third party! Water price increases are inevitable, but I personally believe that it was humane and correct to inform the citizens of Nikšić not only through the local media, because they have the right to be informed on time, about everything that concerns them.

In search of information, I found a notice on the Vodovod website (published on December 17) about the new price of water, which is valid from December 01, 2021. According to the Methodology for determining the prices of regulatory utilities, the new price list foresees a fixed and variable part. For public water supply, the fixed part of the price on a monthly basis, per user, is 1,4911 euros, and for the removal of municipal waste water, the fixed amount per user is 1,0264 euros. The variable part of the price is 0,5126 euros per cubic meter for water supply, and 0,2572 euros per cubic meter for municipal wastewater. The variable part of the price has not been drastically increased, while the fixed part, including VAT, amounts to 2,6937 euros per household, which is a lot for poor households.

For example, in November 2021, the bill for 6 cubic meters of water was 4,57 euros, and the Christmas "gift bill" for December is 7,64 euros, which is 3,07 euros more or 67,2 percent. Even after fiscalization, water bills are printed on the old form, so all codes have lost their meaning, and consumers do not know what they are paying for. In addition to the items "amount of water used" and "amount of waste water", there are now two new fixed items on the bill, which consumers currently do not know what they mean.

Single people, especially elderly people, consume less than 6 cubic meters per month, so for 3 cubic meters of water used, the new bill is increased by 122 percent, and for 4 cubic meters it is 94,9 percent.

According to the bankar.me portal, the price of water in Nikšić (and several other municipalities) was supposed to increase at the beginning of 2021. Consumers, I suppose, are grateful that the price increase was postponed until December, but, nevertheless, the increased bills were an unpleasant "Christmas surprise". . In addition to supplying citizens with water and maintaining the scattered water supply network, Vodovod is also burdened with a waste water purifier, which the Environmental Movement "Ozone" says is not working at full capacity. The citizens of Nikšić have a bad experience with the Vidrovan water source. Two rainy days are enough, regardless of the amount of precipitation, for the local media to convey information such as the following: "The latest precipitation has caused turbidity at the Vidrovan water source, so the Nikšić Waterworks recommends that consumers filter and boil their drinking water..." So we are very often forced to buy water, which represents an extraordinary expense for households, while a huge number of the poor, old and sick are unable to get water, due to poverty and/or inability to deliver it to their homes. Sometimes we drink defective water for days, until someone tells us that "it has been reported that the water is boiling".

Vidrovan and its springs have always been sung about, and are still sung today, and we in Nikšić pay the guild for the "clear water from Vidrovan".

Milojka P. Perović, Nikšić