Mangaluru (The Hindu): With a whopping Rs. 7.77 crore to be collected from water consumers for the past six years, the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has decided to cut the water supply of major defaulters from Monday.

According to Raju Mogaveera, Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), MCC, defaulters have been given time till December 5 to pay.

He said that in the first step, the corporation would focus on recovering water bill dues from bulk consumers such as industries, institutions, hospitals, hotels and apartments.

The defaulters also included government departments. Water supply to the defaulters would be disconnected starting Monday.

The Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) said that half of consumers, who have been issued bills, did not pay for eight months.

Mr. Mogaveera said that according to data, of 83,058 connections given only 78,221 are live. In that (of 78,221 connections) it has been found out that the contractor hired to issue water bills was not issuing bills for about 20,000 consumers.

For example, 59,048 consumers were issued the bills in October, 2015. Of them, only 25,435 consumers made the payment. Of 58,231 bills issued in September only 27,121 paid.

He said that the contractor’s version was that though the corporation records mention connections given to houses, buildings they were not found in the field. Now the corporation had asked contractor to specifically provide the list of such houses, buildings for verification by the corporation.

The reasons for 20,000 connections “not being found” could be due to four factors. Building or houses for which connections given could have been demolished, the connections could have been disconnected due to non-payment of bills or other reasons, the property might have been sold to others or it could be due to clerical error in the corporation. Among the defaulters included some government departments also, he said. Mr. Mogaveera said that 627 establishments in the city owed bill above Rs. 10,000. The total bill to be paid by those establishments itself would be about Rs. 3 crore.

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