Pending water bills raise an uproar in Udupi CMC meet

Pending water bills raise an uproar in Udupi CMC meet

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, Oct 1, 2014:  A debate over the disconnection of the water supply to the households owing to the pending bills in Udupi CMC area created a furore in the CMC general body meeting here on September 29.

Raising the issue, CMC Member Ramesh Kanchan demanded clarification over the number of disconnected water taps in the city. Member Yashpal Suvarna wanted to know the details over the pending amount. The official said that 92 connections were disconnected of which 30 were reconnected after the water tariff was paid. A total of Rs 44.94 lakh is pending. A total of Rs 1,40,700 has been collected. As many as 11 bills are partially paid and 51 bills are pending. The amount is pending since 7-8 years. The official clarified that the pending amount in Tenkaneediyur is Rs 12 lakh and in Bommarabettu Panchayath, the unpaid bill is Rs 3 lakh. Here, the connection had been detached since two years.

Ramesh Kanchan said that the CMC members should not interfere in the matter of revenue collection and the officials should be held responsible. Member Dinaker Shetty said the president should decide over a plan which would enable the CMC to collect nearly 2-3 crore revenue from water connections. The public should be issued notice over misuse of water and the connections.

This would help to minimize the malpractices in the water connections. President Yuvaraj suggested conducting water adalath as a possible solution. However, the pending bills are a hurdle and the previous administration should also be held responsible he added.

Stray dog menace  :   A vital issue that resulted in heated debate was the stray dog menace. The members  pressured the president and commissioner to come out with a solution which would offer safety to the public from stray dogs. The other members irrespective of political affiliation supported Congress member Prashanth Ameen, when he raised the issue. Member Narsimha Nayak demanded the concretization of the state highway in Manipal from bus stand to MIT bus stop. He said the repair of the stretch was taken up some one and half months ago at a cost of Rs one crore. But now the condition of the road is pathetic despite investing Rs one crore for repair. The President said MLA has stopped the payment of bills to the contractor and the payments would be done only when the stretch is repaired once again.

  No info to media:   The other issue that caused exchanging of blame game among the members was the absence of reporters during the previous CMC meet. Opposition leader M R Pai accused that the ruling party was avoiding  informing media owing to the presentation of tender details in the meeting. He demanded clarification from the president for holding BJP as responsible for the absence of media in the last CMC meet.

Nominated member Janardhan Bhandarkar raised the renovation of existing crematorium ground, as it poses  problems  to cremate more than one corpse at a time. The other issues discussed in the meeting include the sealing of defunct borewells and offering toilet facilities to the people in slums to avoid open defecation resulting in unhygienic atmosphere. There was an active participation all along.