MCC yet to collect Rs. 16.42 cr. water bill dues

Mangaluru: Over the years, the water bill dues from defaulters has reached Rs. 16.42 crores which the  Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) is yet to collect and of the many defaulters, 144 of them owe more than Rs. 1 lakh to the corporations.

On Tuesday, at a meeting chaired by Minister for Urban Development and Housing U.T. Khader at the corporation here, Executive Engineer (Water Supply) K.S. Linge Gowda replied to a question from the minister and said that Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Union Ltd. (DKMUL) and the Southern Railways owed Rs. 7.85 lakh and Rs. 6 lakh respectively for consumption of water. Ullal City Municipal Council and Mulki Town Panchayat together owed about Rs. 1 crore and the carry forward dues of the erstwhile Kannur and Bajal gram panchayats was at Rs. 2 crores. Also, KSRTC owes more than Rs. 1 lakh to the corporation. Mr. Linge Gowda also read out the names of some of the individual defaulters.

“Are you colluding with the defaulters?” asked Mr. Khader, who was visibly upset with the situation and asked the officials why no action was being taken against the defaulters.  He gave them two months deadline to collect the dues from all defaulters and said that he would look into the issue again later.

The minister questioned why the revenue officials had failed to issue notice to those who had not paid the property tax and directed corporation Commissioner Mohammed Nazir to take a performance report of revenue officers after serving notices to property tax defaulters.

Buildings which have not obtained completion certificate from the corporation are given temporary door numbers and that double property tax would have to be collected from those buildings which have been given such temporary door numbers, as in many instances, the officials had failed to collect the same, pointed out some councilors.