Civic body's drive against illegal sewer, water connections to resume on June 1

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, May 29

After a week-long interval, the Water Supply and Sewerage Wing of the Municipal Corporation will resume its drive against defaulters and illegal connections on Thursday (June 1).

The MC had announced that it would disconnect the connections of defaulters last week, but took action only in nine cases. According to information, the field staff of the Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Wing was not intimated about snapping the connections. When the staff of the Water Supply and Sewerage Wing made field visits to take action against the defaulters, they were engaged in other tasks.

Water Supply and Sewerage Wing in-charge Rajinder Sharma has written to the O&M officials to deploy junior engineers of all zones with the Water Supply and Sewerage Wing teams on Thursday for snapping the connections.

Today, zonal officials of the Water Supply and Sewerage Wing submitted a list of 10 major defaulters in their respective areas. As per the information, most of the defaulters in the list have to pay more than Rs 50,000 to the MC. In all five zones, the MC has identified 50 major defaulters who didn’t pay water and sewer bills. The MC teams will reach at least five defaulters in each zone on Thursday and collect the pending bills.

“The WSS wing staff would disconnect five connections of major defaulters in their respective areas on Thursday. The JEs of O&M will accompany the teams. A minimum of 25 connections would be disconnected for the recovery of dues. Apart from this, the MC teams will disconnect illegal connections. There are more than 70,000 illegal connections in the city. We appeal to residents to register their connections under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation scheme,” said Rajinder Sharma, in-charge, Water Supply and Sewerage wing.

The Water Supply and Sewerage Wing has targeted the recovery of Rs 15 crore from the defaulters and the wing has collected around Rs 2 crore till date. The Citizen Facilitation Centres have been sending bills to around 50,000 users on their mobiles. There are more than 10,000 users who are defaulters and are not paying the bills regularly.

List of major defaulters submitted

On Monday, zonal officials of the Water Supply and Sewerage Wing submitted a list of 10 major defaulters in their respective areas. As per the information, most of the defaulters in the list have to pay more than Rs 50,000 to the MC.