Rs12-cr water, sewerage bills still pending in city

BATHINDA: Term it lack of political will or poor recovery policies the MC has failed to tighten noose around the defaulters be they residential or commercial or public entities

Updated At : 12:57 PM Mar 06, 2019 IST

Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, March 5

Term it lack of political will or poor recovery policies, the MC has failed to tighten noose around the defaulters, be they residential or commercial or public entities.

Water supply and sewerage bills to the tune of Rs 12.07 crore have been lying outstanding in the MCB.

As per MC record, there are 36,168 water supply and 35,330 sewerage connections, which rose to total 71,498 connections in the city.

As per government policy, 25,638 houses having area up to 125 sq yard have been given exemption in paying water and sewerage bills.

Moreover, 9,030 connections have been lying closed. So the MCB had to get bills from 36,830 units in the city, but still MCB is facing problem is collecting bills from them.

Even the government had come up with a onetime settlement scheme last year in which the interest on pending arrears was waived, if the amount was cleared in one go, but the scheme failed to elicit any response.

There are many units in the city, which had not paid their bills for the past many years and despite issuing notices, no further action has ever been taken by the MCB on defaulters.

“The lackadaisical approach of the department concerned in recovering pending arrears resulted in piling up of the dues, thus hampering the civic body’s financial condition,” an official said, seeking anonymity.

Another reason behind this is the shortage of clerks in the MC, due to which it failed to start door-to-door collection, but now, the civic body is planning to give the bill collection work to Triveni Company.

Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said huge amount of sewerage and water supply bills have been lying outstanding for the past many years, but now they would give the bill collection work to a private company. “We hope that pending bills would be recovered fast,” he added.

On the one hand, the MC is reeling under financial crisis while on the other it is not making any concrete efforts to intensify recovery of pending outstanding bills from residents.