Over Rs 125-cr rise in water arrears in Feb.

Indian Express; Mumbai; Tue Apr 12 2011,

Mumbai : Even as the BMC could collect the water arrears amounting to Rs 301 crore by launching the Abhay Yojna Scheme, it again witnessed a rise in pending arrears by over Rs 125 crore in February. In October 2010, the water arrears from consumers across the city had totalled up to Rs 826 crore, out of which Rs.301 crore was recovered by the civic body from October to January. A reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed to find out the existing water dues states that the total arrears as on February 28 are Rs 656.21 crore, up by Rs.126 crores from Rs.525 crore at January end.

The dues are pending from a few government agencies, private establishments and individual consumers; some of them have not paid the arrears from 2001. The civic body had launched the Abhay Yojna scheme on October 1, 2010. As per the scheme, if any consumer has not cleared his outstanding water bills, they can pay the entire amount and get a rebate of two per cent additional charge per year levied as penalty for the delayed payment.

While the collection during October, November and December was Rs.188 crores, the BMC could recover Rs.113 crore in January alone. Officials called it a significant step since the collection was Rs.26 crore during April, May and June and Rs.38 crore during July, August and September last year.

Deputy Hydraulic Engineer S Maheshwari said the department was busy focusing on preparing water bills that have to be produced by mid March and dispatched to consumers by the end of the fiscal year. “Owing to this, we could not focus on recovering existing dues. But now that the bills have been dispatched, we will again shift our focus on recovering dues.”

Asked if the scheme will be introduced once again, he said, “Though we recovered a sizeable amount as dues, we had expected much more. As of now, there is no plan to re-launch the scheme.”

The dues from private consumers have decreased by 9.71 per cent, from Rs.503 crore in August 2010 to Rs.453 crore in February 2011. The dues from the Central Railway have increased by 10.8 per cent during the same period from Rs.34 crore to Rs.38 crore. The MHADA recently cleared a large chunk of its water dues; its dues have come down by almost 90 per cent from 111.2 crore in August 2010 to Rs.11.3 crore in February 2011.