Source : The Hindu Date : 02.07.2009
MCC to publish list of water bill defaulters
Staff Correspondent
| Drive to be undertaken in August to collect dues, says Mayor |
Chronic defaulters are those who’ve not paid up for long
‘Their connections will be terminated if they do not pay’
Redressing grievances: Mangalore Mayor M. Shankar Bhat (centre) and Deputy Mayor Rajini Duganna (right) at a water adalat in Surathkal on Wednesday.
MANGALORE: The Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) will shortly publish a list of “chronic defaulters” who owe it more than Rs. 1 lakh towards water charges, Mayor M. Shankar Bhat has said.
Speaking to presspersons at Surathkal on Wednesday, he said the defaulters had not paid their water bills for many years. The corporation would start a drive in August to collect dues from defaulters and disconnect water supply connections in case they did not pay, he said.
The Mayor said that some officials in the corporation had told him that there were 69,842 authorised water connections (consumers) in the jurisdiction of the civic body. Of them, only 43 per cent were paying bills regularly.
Mr. Bhat said that after the spot billing method was extended to all 60 wards in the corporation a year ago, some consumers were getting exorbitant bills. There were instances where domestic consumers had been issued bills of more than Rs. 1 lakh for a certain period. This was owing to a fault in the meters, he said and added that such consumers would not be termed “chronic defaulters”. Those who could be called so were the ones who had never bothered to pay their bills for many years. The list of chronic defaulters comprised both domestic as well as commercial users.
To a question, he said the defaulters owed as much as Rs. 11 crore to the civic body. This amount included Rs. 3.5 crore that the Kannur and Bajal gram panchayats had to pay to the corporation for supplying water from the Thumbe vented dam.
The balance was due from individual defaulters, hotels and other establishments.
The Mayor said the corporation had held a water adalat at its head office at Lalbagh recently.
One more adalat each would be held at its head office and at Surathkal shortly. Consumers whose grievances had been solved at the adalats should pay their bills within the given time. If they failed to do so, the corporation would file civil cases against them.
Replacement
He said that if there were faults in the water meters, consumers should replace them on their own. Quality meters were available in the market for approximately Rs. 800. After replacing faulty meters, consumers should inform the corporation about it and produce a copy of the guarantee card of the meter, he added.
