Govt launches one-time policy for defaulters

BATHINDA: To fill its coffers the Local Bodies Department has come up with a onetime settlement policy for the sewerage and water bill defaulters and to regularise the illegal connections in the state

Updated At : 06:17 AM Oct 30, 2017 IST

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 29

To fill its coffers, the Local Bodies Department has come up with a one-time settlement policy for the sewerage and water bill defaulters and to regularise the illegal connections in the state.

Under this policy, rebate has been given to the people who had not paid their sewerage and water bill from long time.

Residents can pay their pending bills till January 15 without any penalty and they will also get 10 per cent rebate. After this date, residents will not get any rebate.

A separate provision has been kept for the illegal sewerage and water connections to get these regularised. Illegal connections will be made legal by paying some amount.

Under this scheme, for residential area up to 125 yards, Rs 200 per connection is to be paid, which includes Rs 100 for sewerage and Rs 100 for water supply.

As water-sewerage bill up to 125 sq yard is waived off, so residents don’t have to pay the old user charges.

For the plot of 125 to 250 yards, a resident will have to pay 500 rupees. Similarly, for more than 250 yards plot, Rs 1,000 will be charged, along with one year’s user charge.

For the commercial area, up to Rs 250 yards, a resident had to pay Rs 1,000 to get the illegal sewerage and water connections regularized.

For area more than 250 yards, the fee is Rs 1,000 along with one year’s user charge.

With this policy, the Local Bodies Department is expecting huge recovery of their pending and outstanding bills.

Around 10,000 illegal connections in the city will be affected by the scheme.

The Municipal Corporation of Bathinda (MCB) has Rs 10 crore of outstanding sewerage and water bills.

If now, people don’t pay their outstanding bills, the MCB would start an exercise of cutting their connections in the city.

Senior deputy mayor Tarsem Goyal said, “The government has issued a one-time policy and has given 10 per cent discount on sewerage-water bills. It is a good decision and people should take benefit of this. Under the scheme, where people will be able to get their connections regularised, they will also be able to pay their outstanding bill with discount. They will not have to pay any penalty or interest.”