01 February,2014 08:17 AM IST | | Sujit Mahamulkar and Chetna Sadadekar
Top politicians, policemen and hospitals find their place in BMC's water bill defaulters' list, which runs into 9,000 pages and has around 9 lakh names on it
For a city that is always on tenterhooks about its water supply, Mumbaikars seem to display a brazen apathy over the payment of water bills. The BMC has a defaulter's list that runs on for 9,000 pages and and has around 9 lakh names on it.
The outstanding dues from the Vidhan Bhavan are Rs 2 lakh
Even more appalling is the fact that this list of defaulters' includes properties used by some of the city's most prominent leaders and state-run agencies, such as Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Home Minister R R Patil, and Minister for Industry, Port, Employment and Self-employment Narayan Rane just to name a few.
CM Prithviraj Chavan and Mayor Sunil Prabhu
Taken together, different government agencies and offices in the state owe a staggering Rs 89 crore in water taxes to the BMC. Ironically, a lion's share of this amount is owed to the civic body by the Thane Zilla Parishad's water supply department, at around Rs 20.69 crore. Another prominent defaulter is the Office of the DCP of Local Arms II, which has outstanding water bills of over Rs 46 lakh.
The civic body is to yet recover the amounts from the state agencies, which include the Collector's office, Mumbai Police Club, Mumbai University, the Public Works Department and various state-run hospitals. Mayor Sunil Prabhu has warned these bodies to pay their dues. Some properties owned by the central government also feature on the list.
Prabhu said, "The BMC is yet to collect around Rs 89 crore from the state agencies, and this is not the first time that bills issued by us have payment pending. We have faced this situation even in the past. We request all to pay off the dues at the earliest, or the civic body will be liable to disconnect the water supply."
There are about 9 lakh water bill defaulters in the city, and the BMC's water department has about Rs 930 crore outstanding for almost 15 years now. Of this, Rs 200 crore is pending from various slum rehabilitation projects.
The BMC had conducted a special drive to recover water bills in the city from February 15 to March 31 last year. In course of the drive, they disconnected over 7,800 water meters spread across residential, commercial and industrial areas. The outstanding amount last year was Rs 900 crore, of which private, residential and commercial buildings owed more than Rs 550 crore. The BMC recovered approximately Rs 150 crore in course of the drive.
