Rs300-crore water dues, govt pulls up officials

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24

The Local Government Department has instructed commissioners, deputy directors and estate officers in 168 local bodies of the state to recover more than Rs 300 crore from residents who have not paid their water bills for the past several months and even years in several cases.

Confirming the figure of outstanding water dues, Director, Local Government, KK Yadav said, “The apathetic attitude of the authorities concerned was responsible for the piling up of unpaid water bills. Besides initiating the recovery process, the department will also fix responsibility for the unpleasant situation. The office has also sought communication from the officers on a schedule of easy payments for the residents.”

The issue of pending bills cropped up in the last week of March when a group of MLAs met Minister for Local Government Navjot Singh Sidhu. They apprised him that water bills had not been issued by the department for the past several years, at some places even 10 years.

The department in March had issued pending bills in the range of Rs 30,000 to Rs 60,000. Residents all over the state reacted and approached their MLAs.

After the meeting, the department sent notices to officers questioning them why pending water bills for the past decade were sent to domestic users in one go, besides asking why those had not been collected for so long.

A Deputy Director said, “The department, in 2013, had contemplated handing over the collection of water bills to Punjab State Power Corporation (PSPCL). Water consumption charges would have been added to the electricity bill. At that point, political appeasement thwarted the government move in the direction of recovering several crores.”

Again in December 2015, the Cabinet cleared a scheme that water and sanitation bill for both residential and non-residential users will be combined with the electricity bill at a fixed rate based on slabs. Against the existing provision of actual meter reading, it was proposed that fixed slabs would be fixed for charges based on consumption of electricity. Those having an electricity bill of Rs 10,000 or more would be charged a maximum of Rs 500.