NEW DELHI: Every Delhi household may soon have to pay a monthly environment compensation fee in lieu of water used from the river Yamuna and sewage released into the river, the Supreme Court has indicated. The amount collected will go towards cleaning the river.Although the National Green Tribunal imposed the fee in two orders passed in 2015, the top court, comprising then Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy, had stayed implementation on October 30.“There’s no reason why this stay should continue,” Chief Justice of India TS Thakur said when Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd knocked on the court’s doors, expressing unwillingness to pick up the amount from residents. The Delhi government had asked power distribution companies to collect the fee.The power distribution companies said they are authorised to collect electricity bill payments and cannot be asked to recover an additional fee. This will also add to their billing costs, they said.The NGT , in twin orders last year, directed the imposition of a green compensation fee on every household in proportion to the property tax or water bill, whichever is higher. In authorised areas, the fee would depend on factors such as actual construction, water usage and sewage released, which would be assessed by officers. Households in unauthorised areas would have to pay between Rs 100 and Rs 500.The fee would be based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle and would be collected as part of the electricity bill, the Delhi government clarified on August 12. It asked the three power distribution companies to start collecting the fee in a week, prompting some of them to move the top court and get a stay on the order.Tata Power Delhi Distribution is the latest to join them and said in a petition filed by lawyer Ramesh Kumar Pukhrambam that no such order could have been passed without the NGT first hearing the company.Such a tax cannot be imposed by the NGT, it said. Besides, the court cannot change the statutory licence conditions laid down by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission. Since it was not a state instrumentality, the Tata company argued, it could not be directed to recover anything other than tariff and incidental taxes. It argued that other municipal authorities are allowed by law to recover the fee by coercive means as arrears of land revenue.