YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) on November 22 adopted a decision to increase the tariff for drinking water supply and drainage services by 11.4 drams, but the tariff for consumers will remain the same, reports Armenpress.

During the PSRC’s November 22 session, the application on setting the tariffs for drinking water supply and drainage services by the Veolia Water Ltd was discussed which proposed to set the overall tariff for these services 194.3 drams instead of the current 180 drams.

After receiving the application from the company, the PSRC conducted a monitoring together with the representatives of the State Committee for Water Economy, as well as NGOs engaged in the protection of consumer rights. During a monitoring inspections were carried out among nearly 2 thousand 200 non-resident consumers, and violations were found out among majority of them. Based on the monitoring and analysis results the PSRC made a decision to set the tariff for drinking water supply and drainage services 191.4 drams instead of the current 180 drams.

Armen Sergoyan, head of the water supply and drainage system department at the State Committee for Water Economy, in response to a question on submitting a proposal under the Prime Minister’s task to keep the tariff unchanged for the consumers, said they will present their proposal to the government within the set timeframe. “We have studied the options, but as long as there is no decision yet to increase the tariff, we could not say anything on that. We will submit the respective proposal to the government. I can state that this 11.4 drams increase will be subsidized at the expense of the lease money of Veolia Water Ltd. In other words, the tariff for the consumer will remain the same”, he said.

PSRC President Robert Nazaryan also stated that the tariff for consumer will remain the same, adding that they will submit a respective draft decision to the government in near future according to which the increase of tariff by 11.4 drams will be subsidized. He assured that this will take place until December 31 of this year since the decision on increasing the tariff will come into force from January 1, 2018.