Mangaluru, (The Hindu): With about one month remaining to complete her one-year term, Mayor Kavita Sanil on Wednesday blamed the Revenue officials and water supply engineers for the civic body lagging behind in revenue collection.

Upset over hearing that default water consumers owed about 26 crore to the civic body the Mayor, who lost her cool in the meeting of the council, said: “Even after I direct the officials to disconnect water supply to major defaulters, they do not act on it. Instead they cut supply to minor defaulters. The same is the case with trade license dues and any other major head of revenue.”

“I cannot drag the officials from their houses and get them to act for they have to discharge their duties,” she said.

Ms. Sanil said that the officials conducted raids on defaulters only when she led them. They did not do it on their own though they should do it.

A water supply engineer said that of about 50 crore revenue collection target from water bills for 2017-18 the corporation, till December end, has collected about 23.87 crore. It was yet to collect the balance 26.54 crore, which included carry forward dues from defaulters.

Earlier, Premananda Shetty, a BJP councillor, pointed out that there was delay in payment to contractors and he wanted to know whether there was any deliberate attempt to create financial scarcity.

He said that no development works have been taken up in the city exceeding the budgetary estimates and still there was delay in payment.

When some councillors questioned why water supply to bill defaulters have not been disconnected, the Mayor said that it needed the cooperation of councillors of respective wards.

In turn she asked the councillors why they did not show interest to get the supply of major bill defaulters disconnected in their wards. The Mayor indirectly hinted that some councillors were rescuing such major defaulters.

Defending the revenue collection, Commissioner Mohammad Nazeer said that property tax collection was at 96% of the target in 2016-17 and water bill collection was at 36 crore during the same financial year.

He hoped that the revenue collection would match the same in the current financial year also.

“Problem with revenue is the mismatch between budget estimates and actual recoveries under respective heads. Normally there is 20-25% variation in the estimates and actual receipts. Aggressive revenue collection happens in February and March,” he said.