Mayor Kavitha warns defaulters to pay water dues within 15 days

Mangaluru: With pending water bills running into crores of rupees, Mangaluru City Corporation Mayor Kavitha Sanil has set a deadline of 15 days for defaulters to clear the bills, failing which their names will be published in newspapers.

Addressing a news conference on Thursday, Sanil said that a sum of above Rs 20 crore is pending since year 2000 towards water bills including commercial and domestic connections. All in all 50000 connections in the city have been utilising water without paying pending bills and nearly 166 connections are due to pay about Rs one lakh, 350 connections have to pay about Rs 50000. Some are due to pay even Rs Seven lakh.

The MCC has already cracked the whip and disconnected 2000 connections since March for non payment of dues. She said that the non payment of bills directly impacts the developmental works.

On being quizzed on her failure to appear before the court on August 9 after a notice was served to her and MCC Commissioner Mohammed Nazeer, directing them to appear in person in connection to the raids at a massage parlor in the city on July 11, the Mayor stated that it was impossible to appear before the court as she received the notice in the evening at 3:30 pm on the same day.

While the owners of the massage parlor have mentioned that they had obtained the license as per rules from the city corporation, the Mayor has said that the license was obtained for a salon and not a massage parlor.Meanwhile, owing to their failure to appear in the court, the court has directed both Sanil and the MCC Commissioner to deposit a sum of Rs 20,000 each in the office of the court registrar. Corporator Shashidhar Hegde, Sabitha Misquith and others were present.