A glass of warm water is 80 sen at a kopitiam

I wonder why the kopitiam mentioned in the letter to the editor today charged its customer 80 sen for a glass of warm water. They are either making lots of profits from plain water or the water authorities themselves has increased their charges.

Water is a basic necessity and if the price of a glass of warm water keeps increasing, what can the public do? Shall all of us make daily trips to the nearest natural water source, rivers or lakes and take whatever we can while we can? Another way would be to collect rain water which should be in abundance when there is a thunderstorm in our area. At the moment, the rainfall is just a trickle and has not helped much in cooling off the heat brought on by the annual haze phenomenon.

We are supposedly a tropical country that enjoys heavy rainfall throughout the year and yet water is an expensive commodity. The authorities will say that the cost is related to the water treatment process and added expenses providing clean water to the consumer. Fair enough I guess but 80 sen per glass is a lot of money. I realise 80 sen is not a big amount in this day and age, therefore charging that much for a glass of water is just plain daylight robbery.

I cannot fathom the reason behind such a price. Water must now be a controlled item too or else speculators will take advantage of this precious commodity. Agreed?

Image from jupitercity