Aurangabad: Illegal water connections off focus as tax recovery rises

AURANGABAD: The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has said that water collection has increased significantly over the last few days even as almost half of the water consumers do not pay taxes.
Incidentally, the water tax recovery over the last three years was affected as the data of water consumers was not shared by the Aurangabad City Water Utility Co.Ltd (ACWUCL) which managed water supply of city for two years until September 2016.
In January, the civic body received data of 1.35 lakh water consumers of the city from the water company in exchange of the payment of the company’s outstanding dues.
According to AMC tax officer Karan Chavan, the data has allowed the civic body to issue water bills to the consumers and, subsequently, the tax recovery has increased. “For financial year 2019-20, the AMC has registered a recovery of Rs 26.18 crore towards water tax. The collection is expected to increase by another Rs 10 to 15 crore,” Chavan said.
The data from the water works department of the municipal corporation shows 1.35 lakh registered water consumers. However, the actual number of water consumers is much higher. “There has not been any survey to bring all the water consumers on record,” Kiran Dhande, head of water works department, said.
The number of illegal water connections are estimated around 1.2 lakh.
Those paying taxes regularly have expressed discontent over the biased approach of the civic body in tax recovery.
The last drive against illegal water connections was carried out by the AMC in June 2019. When asked about the action on illegal connections, Chavan said that due to financial year-end, most staff is engaged in tax recovery work. “The drive can be conducted after March-end when the staff is available,” Chavan said. He said that the self-assessment drive of the municipal corporation has also reaped good response. The drive has seen 20,000 property holders pro-actively declaring their property details under which there is a section for tap water connection too.