Published On : Tue, Jun 7th, 2016

NMC floats One Time Settlement of pending water bills but with a rider

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NMC Building

Nagpur: In a good news to defaulters of water tax dues, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has floated an idea to settle all the pending water bills under One Time Settlement (OTS) Scheme . The One Time Settlement scheme is likely to benefit 50216 defaulters but they will have act within a stipulated period of 15 days, which many claim is too short a period to settle their dues.

Water Committee Chairman Sandeep Joshi, while talking to media persons, said that the NMC has decided to provide relief to water consumers who are facing enormous difficulties in clearing the pending dues since long. Nagpur Environmental Services Limited (NESL) has decided to waive off the interest on water bills and brought it down to 50 percent. If a consumer has a pending bill of Rs 100 with a penalty of Rs 20, the amount of penalty will be deducted from the original bill amount of Rs 100. It means the total amount of bill will be Rs 80. However, in view of difficulties being faced by consumers to pay the bills, only 50 percent of the total dues will be recovered which in effect means the consumers will have to pay Rs 40 to clear all the pending dues. Legal opinion has been taken by the NMC for viability of the scheme while providing relief to the consumers.

Water bills of around Rs 109 crore are pending including interest of Rs 19 crore. After waiving of the interest, the remaining amount of Rs 90 crore will be reduced to Rs 45 crore only. However, the Standing Committee will take a final decision in this regard in its meeting slated on June 10. Once approved, the residential consumers, slum-dwellers, government colonies, government hospitals, offices, educational institutes among others would be included in the scheme to avail One Time Settlement benefits.