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PMC collects fine from defaulters

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The Times of India 19.08.2009

PMC collects fine from defaulters

PATNA: Continuing its special drive against erring shop owners who throw garbage on city roads, the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Tuesday imposed fine on 23 such shopkeepers.

A PMC team conducted the drive on city's Fraser Road, Gandhi Maidan, Exhibition Road and New Market areas and found that 23 shopkeepers had not placed their dustbins, as asked earlier, and were throwing garbage on roads, which led to imposition of fine.

The PMC team also collected fine from three street vendors who too were found to be throwing garbage on roads.

"A total of Rs 3,200 was collected from the defaulters as fine," PMC Nootan Rajdhani circle executive officer Vinay Sharan Verma said.

The corporation had launched the drive on Monday and on the very first day Rs 2,500 was collected as fine from the erring shopkeepers.

Prior to the launch of the drive, the corporation had launched a three-day special drive informing the shopkeepers that they should keep their own dustbins and PMC special sanitation teams would collect the garbage from their shops so that roads could be kept clean.

Meanwhile, the Nootan Rajdhani circle has also got rid of many of the unused vehicles which had become junk and were lying on the circle's office premises for years together.

"A sum of Rs 5.80 lakh was earned by auction of these old vehicles," Verma said and added that competitive bidding, in which about 500 bidders took part, allowed the corporation to get higher prices for the old vehicles, base prices for which were fixed on the basis of the report of local motor vehicle inspector.
 

Cops, KMC to make city cleaner

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The Times of India 19.08.2009

Cops, KMC to make city cleaner

KOLKATA: Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Police have joined hands to give citizens an encroachment-free city. Police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti met mayor Bikash Bhattacharya and municipal commissioner Arnab Roy at the KMC headquarters on Tuesday to chalk out a detailed plan for a joint drive.

Bhattacharya said a combined force would demolish all unauthorised stalls on pavements, remove ragpickers from major thoroughfares and raid markets to seize banned plastic bags. "We will undertake a drive against unauthorised construction as well as ragpickers who set up makeshift settlements next to thoroughfares. Our team will also raid municipal and private markets and seize plastic bags below 40 microns," he said. The objective of the drive, the mayor asserted, was to give Kolkata a cleaner look.

According to KMC sources, campaigns against illegal encroachment would begin in the central business district ( CBD).

"We will remove encroachments from CBD areas such as BBD Bag, Esplanade, Park Street, Camac Street and Jahawarlal Nehru Road, among other places. Then, we will move to highly-encroached areas such as Hatibagan, Park Circus, Gariahat, Behala, Garden Reach and others," a senior KMC official said.

Sources said the decision to crack down on unauthorised stalls was taken after a series of meetings failed to yield any results.

 

Financial reforms improve water supply in twin cities

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The Times of India 19.08.2009

Financial reforms improve water supply in twin cities

HUBLI: When Karnataka Urban Water Supply & Drainage Board (KUWSDB) was handed over maintenance and operation of water supply in Hubli-Dharwad municipal limits during the drought in 2003, the residents used to get drinking water once in 10-14 days. Six years down the line, they get it once in 4-5 days.

During the same period, while KUWS&DBs expenditure has increased from Rs 10.88 crore to Rs 17.13 crore, its revenue has shot up from Rs 3.61 crore to Rs 17.81 crore, thus generating surplus funds for expanding water supply network to uncovered areas like the newly developed extensions.

In 2003, none of the 69,000 consumers had metered connection. Today, 65% of over one lakh connections have metered supply. Those who chose to pay their water bills then had to wait for over one hour in the queue to make payment. Now, they can do it in less than 30 minutes at the neighbourhood cash centre.

Earlier, consumers had to get prior approval of the authorities before making part payment of outstanding bills. Now, part payment is allowed without prior approval. Consumers have been issued bar coded I-cards, which allows them to make payment without even producing the bills.

These are some of the IT-enabled citizen-friendly initiatives introduced by the Water Board which have enabled it to bring about metamorphic improvement in water supply scenario in the twin cities. These financial reforms have helped it bag the National Urban Water Award-2009, given by the central ministry of urban development.

KUWS&DB executive engineer K P Jayaram, who has been at the helms in the twin cities all through this trying period, gave a presentation before the awards ceremony in New Delhi, for possible replication by other urban local bodies across the country. Union urban development minister Jaipal Reddy also witnessed the presentation.

Jayaram told 'TOI' that there are plans to introduce self-billing, whereby consumers will record meter reading, visit the nearest computerized collection centre, pay the bill after the system automatically calculated the amount, and walk away. Online bill payment facility is also in the offing. It will do away with human errors/ malpractices and improve revenue collection.
 


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