There are 103 government departments who have defaulted in payment of water bills. These departments have outstanding bills amounting to Rs 5.50 crore against their names. The issue of the pending bills would be coming up for discussion in the House Meet of the Municipal Corporation on September 29. The information was sought by councillor Brig K S Chandpuri (Retd). He had demanded to know how many government departments were defaulting in payment of bills. The list provided by the Public Health department is part of the agenda of the meeting. Amongst the biggest defaulters is the Horticulture Department. The Horticulture Department Division 2 in Sector 1 has three connections with bills amounting to Rs 64.95 lakh pending against each. The irrigation of Leisure Valley,Sector 10 seems to be done free of cost. The connection given here has an amount of Rs 20.85 lakh pending. The Horticulture Sub Division in Sector 40 is yet to pay bills worth Rs 1.02 lakh. The SDO office in Sector 23 has pending bills amounting to Rs 1.27 lakh. Bills for irrigating green belt in Sector 33 amounting to Rs 10 lakh have not been paid. The public health divisions of the Municipal Corporation in Sector 8 and 9 have bills amounting to a few lakhs pending. The officials have claimed that of these 93 connections have been disconnected. Brig Chandpuri says that bills are pending since 2002. If the connections had been disconnected then greenbelts would have dried up. This has not happened. We would be taking up the issue in the House.
