Govt. institutions owe Rs. 48 crore of the total Rs. 202 crore dues

Mysuru: The cash-strapped Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) is mulling to issue legal notices to several Government institutions, industries and private companies which all put together owe water bill to the tune of Rs. 208 crore to the civic body for last so many years.

“We will write to all the Government and private companies to immediately clear property tax and water bill immediately. If they failed to pay, we have no option except issuing legal notices to such departments and companies to recover money. A list of defaulting Government departments and private companies has been prepared,” MCC Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde told Star of Mysore.

Interestingly, of Rs.202 crore pending water bills, a number of Government departments like Zilla Panchayat, Gram Panchayats and University of Mysore owe Rs. 48 crore to the MCC. First, they will be sent letters to clear the dues. In case of no reply, legal notices will be sent to all defaulting companies and departments. 

There are 1,77,700 water connections in city and the monthly collection should have been Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 6 crore. However, the collection for the last two months had been around Rs 4 crore to Rs. 5 crore — a short of Rs. 80 lakh to Rs. 90 lakh, Hegde said.

Water meters

The Commissioner said water meter had not been installed in around 50,000 houses in city and notices are issued once in three months to get the meter connection. Till then, the MCC was collecting a minimum amount of Rs. 160 from each house. Plans are afoot to install water meter by the MCC in those houses. The coming Council meeting will decide whether the installation should be made free of cost or collect money from residents concerned, he added.

Rain Water Harvest

A Rs. 1.73 crore action plan to build soak pits and other civil works at various public parks for Rain Water Harvesting has been prepared under 15th Finance Plan. The parks which are selected for this are; Bharath Matha Park and Mathura Park in Kuvempunagar, Freedom Fighters’ Park in Subbarayanakere, Subbarao Park in Niveditanagar, park near Sangam Circle, 12th Main Road Park in Saraswathipuram, Shakthinagar Park, Ambedkar Park in Ashokapuram, Kuppanna Park in Nazarbad, Nage Park in Siddarthanagar, Nehru Park in Udayagiri, N.R. Mohalla’s Shivaji Park, J.P. Nagar’s Shivakumara Swamiji Park and Hebbal’s Basavanagudi Park. Also, soak pit will  be built on High Tension Road in Ward No. 3, he said.

The Commissioner said citizens, who are building houses on sites measuring more than 20 feet X 30 feet must build soak pits compulsorily or else an additional 5 percent water cess will be charged for them. However, those who provide rain water harvesting will get 10 percent discount in water bill. The idea behind this was to encourage people to adopt rain water harvesting to save precious water.