Mysore/Mysuru: Opposing the Mysuru City Corporation’s (MCC) proposal to hike domestic water and sewerage tariff, K.R. MLA S.A. Ramdas has written to the MCC asking it to drop the plan.
In a letter to the Mayor, Ramdas said it has come to his knowledge that MCC has planned the hike to raise its revenues as the Government may not continue funding of MCC’s power bills out of SFC grant. But as the Government has no plans of suspending SFC (Electricity) funding, the MCC’s proposal on tariff hike seems illogical.
The MLA has also highlighted several shortcomings in the drinking water supply system in areas coming under all the 65 MCC wards of the city, which are as under:
It has been discovered that water bill is raised for only 140 MLD, while the actual supply is 335 MLD, which means that 195 MLD has been unaccounted for. This should be rectified.
Although the MCC is issuing water bills to 1.8 lakh domestic users, only one-third payment of bills (about 60,000) is being recorded, which means that 1.2 lakh consumers are at default on payment of bills. The MCC should ensure that it receives payment for all the water bills issued to consumers, which helps in revenue enhancement.
It has also been found that there are 40,000 unauthorised water connections in the city and they should be identified and brought under the water tax net.
The MCC has planned to hike sewerage fee from the existing 30 percent to 40 percent. The MCC should maintain an Escrow Account for collecting water tax and sewerage tax from major non-residential and commercial buildings. The MCC can use the revenue thus earned for taking up new works.
MLA Ramdas, in his letter, has highlighted that the MCC should consider his suggestions and take appropriate measures underlined by him for plugging loopholes and shortcomings in the water tax and drainage (sewerage) tax collection system and thus rake in additional revenues. He has also suggested MCC to drop its proposal for hiking domestic water and sewerage tax.
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Ramdas says:
“Although the MCC is issuing water bills to 1.8 lakh domestic users, only one-third payment of bills (about 60,000) is being recorded, which means that 1.2 lakh consumers are at default on payment of bills. The MCC should ensure that it receives payment for all the water bills issued to consumers, which helps in revenue enhancement.
It has also been found that there are 40,000 unauthorised water connections in the city and they should be identified and brought under the water tax net”
1. “1.2 lakh consumers are at default on payment of bills.”, not really!
The MCC officials have private arrangements with these 1.2 Lakh customers that , if they pay them ( that is, the MCC officials), in cash, through private visits, the cash going straight into the private bank accounts of these MCC officials, these officials will ensure that these customers do not have to pay the bills.
2. “It has also been found that there are 40,000 unauthorised water connections”, that is very low and very much an underestimate. These connections are at least 10-50 times that number. Again, these are known to the MCC officials, and there is private arrangement of bribery involved , so that the MCC officials pocket the money and do nothing about these unauthorised connections.
While, the above 2, involve lower level MCC officials taking bribes, there is yet another category of very rich property owners, all of them arrived within the last 10 years from outside the state, who purchased lands and plots and built large houses with gardens, and whose properties do not appear in the MCC records at all. These are increasingly large numbers, who are the hundreds of employees of the UAE resident Malayalee crime gang chiefs who smuggle gold into Kerala, and work to distribute it these days to Mysore and to Bangalore too, via Wayanad-Nanjangud-Mysore route. They are also involved in the Hawala channel money transactions-illegal , expanding into Mysore. These employees maintain these large properties, and their payrolls are the MC, DC, MCC corporators and Mysore police officials from the police commissioner downwards.