E-Paper
57 % have not paid water bills even once
FOR ALL its well-documented affluence, Indore does not seem inclined to shell out cash when it comes to paying for utilities, even for life-saving things like water.
FOR ALL its well-documented affluence, Indore does not seem inclined to shell out cash when it comes to paying for utilities, even for life-saving things like water.
Fifty seven per cent of the City’s 1.49 lakh households with access to piped water supply have not paid monthly water bills even once during the current year.
The residents’ tight-fistedness continues to thwart Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) attempts to shore up tax collections, thus making piped water supply, at least partially, financially self-sustaining. This threatens to impose an additional tax burden on those who scrupulously line up to pay their water bills each month.
With merely two months to go for the end of the fiscal year the Corporation has so far garnered only Rs 4.50 crore, or 44 per cent, of total current dues of Rs 10.22 crore.
Recovery statistics for old dues are even more depressing. Of the total outstanding amounts of Rs 40 crore the civic body has managed to cajole only Rs 1 crore from defaulters.
The Corporation incurs annual expenses of around Rs 85 crore whereas collections from water tax hover between Rs 7-8 crore resulting in an annual deficit of over Rs 70 crore.
The yawning gap between payable and recovered amounts is especially worrisome as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), which the City is counting on to bankroll a spate of development programmes, lists 85 per cent tax collection as a precondition for funding.
Ironically, the Corporation’s attempts to jack up collections by offering water tax rebates have only served to further delay payments. The civic body offers a 25 per cent concession on a one-time clearance of outstanding taxes upto 2003-04.
Against this, residents who pay water bills regularly are entitled only to a rebate of 6.2 per cent (10 per cent each for senior citizens’ and women’s property with the rebate doubled for those who fulfil both criterion).
Lured by the possibility of having to pay lower bills if they delay payments long enough to be declared defaulters, City denizens merrily continue to let the dues accumulate.
