Shimla: SJPNL falters in recovery of Rs 9.5 crore water bills

Tribune News Service

Sameer Singh

Shimla, January 20

Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited (SJPNL) has been faltering on the collection of outstanding water bills to the tune of Rs 9.5 crore.

It regularly issued notices to the defaulters, especially those who had not cleared the outstanding water bills for several years.

Defaulters’ connections to be snapped

We have already expedited the process to recover the outstanding water bills. Notices have been issued to defaulters. Now, we will wait for the payment till next month after which the water connections of the defaulters will be snapped. PP Sharma, AGM, SJPNL (Water supply)

The data procured by The Tribune from the SJPNL revealed that of Rs 12.5 crore outstanding water bills for the past five years, Rs 3 crore had been collected while Rs 9.5 crore was yet to be paid by the defaulters. The SJPNL has now decided to disconnect the water connections of the defaulters. It has already disconnected some of the connections on a temporary basis.

SJPNL senior officials claimed that they had adopted a “softened approach” in the recovery of the outstanding amount of water bills during and after some period of the Covid pandemic. But that period was over and “tough” measures would be taken to recover the pending water bills now, said a senior official of the SJPNL.

Sources said there were many consumers who had outstanding water bills running into lakhs and following a toughened stance of the SJPNL, some of them had made the partial payment but there were still many who had not cleared their dues to date.

Talking to The Tribune, PP Sharma, AGM, SJPNL (Water Supply) said, “We have already expedited the process to collect the outstanding water bills. There was a pending bill of Rs 21 lakh of a Kufri-based hotel and Rs 5 lakh of a city-based hotel, which have been recovered. Collections have been made from many such major defaulters in recent months.”

“We had given relaxation to consumers in view of the pandemic but now that period is well over. There are owners who have given their houses on rent and they live somewhere else, so tenants do not make the payments. Besides this, there are commercial connections that have not been making payments. But, we have managed to collect a sizable amount of pending water bills,” Sharma added.

There are more than 36,000 water meter connections — 30 per cent commercial and 70 per cent domestic.

As per officials, notices have been issued to around 1,200 consumers having pending water bills of Rs 50,000 or more and collections have been made from some of them.

Sharma said, “There are 47 consumers with an amount of Rs 5 lakh or more pending. Of them, the SJPNL has recovered the dues from 27 consumers in instalments. There are 169 consumers with bills pending to the tune of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, 450 with dues of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh and 750 with Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh due. We have been issuing notices and even reaching out to the defaulters at their houses to make recovery. We will wait till next month after which the disconnection of water meters will be started.”

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