Water & sewerage bills: Civic body acts against defaulters

Our Correspondent

Patiala, October 15

To generate funds for development projects of the Municipal Corporation, Patiala, civic body officials have started acting tough against defaulters of water and sewerage bills. Besides issuing notices to the defaulters, teams of the MC have been visiting their households and disconnecting connections for not paying the pending bill amounts.

It is learnt that around Rs 3.90 crore is the recoverable amount of water and sewerage bills. Though the MCP officials have collected around Rs 6 lakh in only five working days this week, the department concerned of the civic body has collected as many as Rs 60 lakh in the past six months.

The civic body issues around 350 notices per month to the defaulters of water and sewerage bills and if they ignore the notices, the employees cut connections of the respective households.

Sources claimed that the corporation did not have funds to get developmental works done as the financial condition of the Municipal Corporation had weakened after the implementation of the GST by the Centre and the state government had also rolled back the funds allotted by the previous SAD-BJP government in the state for several projects.

MCP Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Khaira said the teams, led by the officials of the department concerned were being sent to various areas of the city for collection of pending bills from the defaulters.

He also appealed to city residents to pay their outstanding amount of all type of MC bills, including property tax, which would help them in initiating pending development projects in the city.