The Indian Express 22.04.2013
MC yet to act against govt depts defaulting on dues
The Municipal Corporation might have tightened the noose around city residents who are defaulting on payment of water bills in its ongoing drive, but the civic body is yet to act against the government departments which owe a few crores to the Municipal Corporation. However, MC officials claim that this is the first phase of the drive and in the second phase, the government departments would be targeted.
Among the defaulters is the Horticulture Department that has pending bills amounting to Rs 1.5 crore. The amount has been pending for several years. Around two years back, most of the greenbelts and gardens that were with the UT Administration were transferred to the Municipal Corporation. Along with the greenbelts, the liabilities were also transferred to the civic body.
Other prominent defaulters are the police headquarters with a pending amount of Rs 20 lakh and the Punjab Civil Secretariat with a pending amount of Rs 13 lakh. Several other departments are also yet to clear the bills.
Chairperson of the Water Supply and Sewerage Disposal Committee Shagufta Parveen feels the same treatment should be meted out to everyone. "Whether it is government departments or city residents, everyone should be treated on a par. Pending dues should also be collected from the government departments. The positions of the defaulters should not matter," she said.
However, Superintending Engineer (Public Health) R C Diwan said, "As far as the government departments are concerned, it is simply transfer of money from one pocket to the other. We can recover the money at any time. This is the first phase of our drive to recover pending bills. In the second phase, we will shift focus to the government departments."
He added, "Since we started the drive, people are coming forward to clear their dues. The fear of disconnection of meters has ensured that long-pending bills are now being cleared."
Since the drive started on April 12, pending dues worth Rs 70 lakh have been collected. It is expected that around Rs 4 to 5 crore would be collected within a month.
The city receives 87 million gallons daily (mgd) of water, of which 67 mgd is from Kajauli and the remaining from tubewells. During peak summers, the demand increases to 113 mgd. While the demand is increasing with the growing population, over the past few years the supply has remained constant.
The project to start the next two phases of Kajauli to get additional water has been hanging fire due to the dispute between Punjab and Haryana over sharing of water. The proposal prepared by Chandigarh for augmentation of water supply went into cold storage despite a clearance by the Centre after refusal of the Punjab government to release water.
