Officials get notices for not distributing 50K water bills

Tribune News Service

Harshraj Singh

Ludhiana, April 16

The Municipal Corporation has failed to meet the income target for water supply and sewerage charges during the last fiscal year. The MC officials concerned even failed to ensure timely distribution of over 50,000 water supply and sewerage bills to the users in different parts of the city.

Taking a serious note in this regard, the Additional Commissioner served show-cause notices to the Executive Engineers (O&M Branch) and Zonal Superintendents of Zone A, B, C and D for not ensuring 100 per cent distribution of the bills.

According to Additional Commissioner, MC, Rishipal Singh, the officials were supposed to ensure the timely distribution of all printed bills.

To collect the water supply and sewerage charges from the consumers, a total of 1,38,559 bills were printed from October 2021 to March 2022. The last day for depositing the charges was March 28, 2022, but 52,549 bills were not distributed to users concerned till that day, the Additional Commissioner said.

In Zone A, 12,813 out of 25,509 printed bills were only distributed, while 23,453 out of 31,208 printed bills were distributed in Zone B of the MC. Besides, Zone C staff distributed 22,177 out of 28,221 printed bills and Zone D staff distributed only 27,566 out of 53,620 printed bills.

Additional Commissioner Rishipal Singh stated in the show-cause notices that many city residents did not pay their water supply and sewerage charges as they had not received bills. The civic body could not even meet 50 per cent of the income target under the head of water supply and sewerage charges for 2021-22.

The officials have been asked to submit their reply with explanation in this regard otherwise necessary action would be initiated against them.

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