Source : The Hindu Date : 14.06.2009
‘Jala bhagya’: notices to be served for installation of water
meters
Raviprasad Kamila
About 10,000 families have been availing the benefits of the scheme
Civic body is incurring a revenue loss of Rs. 2 lakh a month
MANGALORE: The Mangalore City Corporation will soon be issuing notices to all those who obtained water connections under the “jala bhagya” scheme to get water-meters installed for them, according to Mayor M. Shankar Bhat.
Mr. Bhat told The Hindu on Saturday that there were more than 10,000 water connections in the city under the “jala bhagya” scheme, which was meant for the poor families. Of them, about 4,000 connections did not have meters. This was causing a huge loss of revenue for the civic body, he said. Going by the Mayor’s statement and assuming that all the 4,000 water connections were to yield a minimum tariff of Rs. 50 a month each, the corporation has been incurring a revenue loss of Rs. 2 lakh a month.
Subodh Shetty, managing director, Prasanna Technologies, which has been awarded the contract to issue spot water bills in the city, told The Hindu that no bills were being issued to water connections which did not have meters.
The Mayor said that the consumers themselves had to fix the meters and the civic body was not responsible for that. The consumers, after installing the meters, should furnish the details to the corporation and obtain the sequence numbers from the corporation. People coming under the jala bhagya scheme were required to pay a minimum water tariff of Rs. 50 a month to the corporation. The minimum monthly tariff for other domestic users of water was Rs. 65, he added.
People desirous of enrolling their names for the scheme had to pay a deposit of Rs. 500 to the corporation as connection charges. For other domestic users, the deposit amount was Rs. 2,000, he said.
Mr. Bhat said that public taps would soon be removed from places where a large number of people availing the benefits of the scheme were residing. This would help the corporation in reducing the wastage of drinking water, he said. Mr. Bhat said that the “water adalats”, which had been suspended owing to the election code of conduct, had been re-started from Tuesday last. As many as 60 complaints related to water supply were addressed on the spot, even as 600 complaints were pending for disposal.
