Urban News

Municipal Commissioner Asheesh Sharma said the step was aimed facilitating chawl residents to get water connections easily. “We want to cut delays in providing water connections. The idea is make the system simple and straight. We will provide water connections on demand.”

Sharma said any chawl resident seeking water connection will have to apply between May 1 and July 31. “Every resident will get a separate meter on demand. He or she will have to apply individually,” Sharma said.

Prakash Landge, owner of a chawl, said the civic administration cannot bypass landlords. “The chawls are owned by us. The property belongs to us. If anything is to be done, it should be with the landlord’s permission,” he said.

On the other hand, the move has cheered tenants. “We have been filling water from roadside taps for two decades due to landlords refusing to give us an NOC to get water meters. The nightmare will end now,” said Vinod Bansode, a resident of Kasarwadi.

A chawl resident seeking water connection will have to provide a residential proof and pay an advance of Rs 1,400 towards water bill and Rs 1,500 for meter installation. “The advance water meter bill is being taken from chawl residents because if they leave without notice, the PCMC will be at a loss,” said independent corporator Maruti Bhapkar, who had staged a sit-in for nearly three weeks outside the PCMC headquarters. The agitation was withdrawn after Mayor Yogesh Behl and NCP chief Azam Pansare intervened.

Welcoming the move to provide water connections without permission of landlords, Bhapkar said lakhs of chawl residents do not get water in homes as landlords do not allow them to get connections. “The landlords do not provide NOCs, in the absence of which PCMC refused water connections. Henceforth, residents won’t require any NoC,” he said.

Bhapkar said after his agitation, the PCMC agreed not only to take care of chawl residents, but also slum-dwellers besides waive meter installation charges for nearly 23,000 residents.

However, the civic chief said the final decision on waiving meter installation charges will be taken at the civic general body meeting. “There is a proposal to waive the charges, but the final decision will come after a debate in the general body meeting. But the waiving of charges will apply only to those having sought meters before March 31, 2009,” he said. The PCMC has also decided to reduce the annual water tax levied on slum-dwellers from Rs 1070 to Rs 700.

The work was the construction of a pipeline to bring Narmada water to the town. On February 26, Chief Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the same. But the civic body has shot back, saying that inferior quality material was used in the construction.

Advocate Rakesh Rajput representing Godhra-based contractor, Pankaj Amin, has filed a civil suit against Godhra Municipality president, Murli Moolchandani, for not paying Rs 5.4 crore for the works completed about one and a half years ago. “They have only cleared certain portions of the money. We had written to them several times but nothing happened so we were bound to take legal action,” said Amin.

Rajput said the case has been filed in the court of Godhra District Judge as a special civil law suit (case no: 16/2010).

Meanwhile, Moolchandani has accused Amin of doing substandard work on the pipelines, including the sumps and the joints. “A third party evaluation shows that most of the joints have leakages right from Signal Faliya near Godhra railway station to Lalbaug. All the sumps have faulty designs and cement has been poorly used. Should we pay him for the substandard work that he has done?” he said.

He added that the Godhra Municipality is planning to file a case against the contractor.

In an unrelated development, the Godhra civic body has received a grant of Rs 25 lakh from Urban Development Minister Nitin Patel to rejuvenate five of the lakes that surround the city. “Digging in five of the lakes has begun for the first time. We hope to meet the water demands,” Moolchandani said.