WHAT KIND OF WATER DRINK FRENCH PEOPLE, HOW AND WHERE DO THEY GET IT FROM? HOW MUCH DO THEY PAY FOR IT?
AZG Armenian Daily
03/05/2007
In 2005 "Yerevan Water and Sewerage" company’s 10-year Lease Contract
was awarded to the French biggest company ‘Generale des Eaux’,
‘Viola water’ in 2006.
The company has 150 years of experience in the sphere of water
supply. It was founded in 1853 and signed its first contract in
Lion. Jan Patris Puarie, director of the branch of South-East Europe
and Middle Asia, told about this to the members of the Armenian
delegation: officials and specialists of the water supply sphere,
reporters and representatives of NGOs, who were invited to France.
The branches of ‘Viola’ Co. are not only in France, i.e. Paris,
Marcel, Lion, etc., but also in such biggest cities as Prague, Berlin,
Bucharest and also Yerevan.
Private operators organize water supply of 75 percent of population
in Paris, and the leader of this sphere is ‘Viola’ Co., the second
one is ‘Suez’ and the third – ‘Soar’, which was awarded a four-year
management contract in Armenia, in 2004.
In order to see how the water supply service is organized in France,
we visited one of the stations of the company. Before the water gets
to the consumer it passes a long way of cleansing and filtering. 1m3
of this water costs from 3 up to 3.5 Euros. 32 % of this price is
sewerage cost. Prices of water in different places are different in
France. It depends on the quality, territory and other conditions. The
prices are in the range of 1.5 to 4 Euros. According to Jan Patris
Puarie, a French family of four members pays only 0.8% of its budget
for water supply service.
French has got a high level of consumer service in this sphere. We
saw it in Lion; all the complaints of the subscribers immediately
appear on the electronic screen, here you can see how many phone
calls are registered at that moment, how many workers are free,
who are ready to answer the calls, and how many calls are already
answered. Besides of these, in the computers of the company are
registered all the data of the subscribers and shown the figures of
their water measurers. We asked Jan Patris Puarie, if we could hope
for having the same management system in Armenia. The answer was:
"We will have half of it".