The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) on Tuesday announced a new scheme for collecting pending water bills by offering to keep the interest on outstanding dues in abeyance.
Disclosing the details of the interest abeyance scheme, Mayor Sunanda Palanetra told reporters in Mysuru on Tuesday that out of the total 1.8 lakh drinking water connections in the city, an amount of ₹220 crore was due from around 52,000 water connections for the last several years. While the principal amount was ₹146 crore, interest on the outstanding bills amounted to a total of ₹74 crore.
As the MCC was not empowered to waive the interest amount on the outstanding bills, the civic body had already sent a proposal in the regard to the State government to take a decision on waiver of the interest.
Meanwhile, the MCC, at its meeting on April 29, decided to come up with a one-time offer to keep the interest component in abeyance if the entire outstanding amount is cleared. The interest will be kept in abeyance till the State government takes decision on the MCC’s proposal to waive the interest on the outstanding bills.
The scheme, which comes into effect from July 15, will be in force for the next six months. The bills under the scheme can be cleared at the MCC’s zonal offices and Karnataka One centres. The MCC is also coming up with a Revenue Management Software that facilitates the consumer to pay the bills under the scheme when the water bill collector comes home. The citizens paying the bill amount directly to the bill collector have been asked to collect a printout of the receipt.
The interest abeyance scheme, Ms. Palanetra said, will not only help the cash-strapped MCC mobilise revenue, but also help the consumers clear their outstanding dues.
However, the Mayor said the MCC cannot give any assurance on the waiver of the interest component on the outstanding bills till the State Government decides on the matter.
About 270 million litres per day (MLD) of water is supplied to different parts of the city from different sources and the number of connections is increasing at the rate of 2,000 to 2,500 every month, according to sources in MCC.
Meanwhile, Ms. Palanetra said a mayoral grant of ₹50 lakh will be given to each of the 65 wards of MCC in the city. A decision on the spending the amount is left to the discretion of the ward corporators, she said. The decision to allocate ₹50 lakh to each ward comes after complaints from different corporators that the Mayoral grant is disbursed selectively to wards.
