Discrepancies in water bill: Mayor to hold water adalat

To rectify the mistakes in water bills and to redress the woes of consumers, a monthly water adalat will be convened soon, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) Mayor Diwakar said.

The mayor, while chairing the council meeting, said people have been facing inconveniences due to discrepancies in the bill.

Raising the issue, corporator Naveen D’Souza said that the water billing mechanism should be streamlined.

There have been discrepancies in the water bills issued. The consumers have been getting exorbitant bills, he added.

Supporting his view, corporator Shashidhar Hegde said that normally a household gets Rs 200 to Rs 300 bill per month. However, recently, they have been receiving Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 bill per month. The minimum tariff for the water bill should be reduced to benefit the poor.

Corporator Lancelot Pinto urged the mayor to re-convene the water adalat.

Corporator Sudheer Shetty said that water bills are issued once in three to four months. There is only one inspector for 60 wards.

MCC Commissioner Akshy Sridhar said that staff will be appointed to make the water billing system more efficient.

Corporator Vinay Raj alleged that the tax collection has been reduced in MCC limits. Only 28.48% of the property tax has been collected so far.

Bills of works taken up in the MCC limits worth Rs 70 crore have not been cleared, he said.

The mayor announced that Rs 25 lakh each will be given to all the corporators to take up immediate work on roads, drains, water supply and streetlights in their wards respectively.

Impure water supply: Show cause notice

Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has served a show cause notice on an assistant executive engineer, who is allegedly responsible for supplying water with low pH level to Mangaluru city during the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

MCC commissioner Akshy Sridhar said the inquiry showed that the pH level of water supplied was lower than the prescribed limits.

Normally, the pH level of water should be between 6.5 and 7.5. The report on the sample tested revealed that it was between 6.3 and 6.4. There was negligence on the part of the officials, said the MCC commissioner.

It was Leader of the Opposition in Council Abdul Rauf who had raised the issue during the previous council meeting on August 13. He had said MCC by supplying water without proper treatment had jeopardised the health of people. The council had directed the MCC commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the charges.