Pvt co hands over data of of 1.3L water consumers

Aurangabad: In a major development towards water tax recovery, the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has received the data of 1.3 lakh consumers from the private company assigned to manage water supply for two years until September 2016.

A report published by TOI on December 29 highlighted that the municipal corporation is not issuing water bills to its consumers due to the non-availability of data.

Under a contract signed with the civic body, the Aurangabad City Water Utility Company Ltd. (ACWUCL) was managing the water supply of the city for two years. The company issued water bills to consumers and also carried out the recovery of water tax. However, after the AMC terminated the contract with the company in September 2016, no formal handover of the water supply system was given to the civic body.

The ACWUCL also did not share the data of the water consumers with the AMC. Therefore, the civic body was not issuing any water bills to consumers. The TOI report stated that the AMC tax officer had agreed that the municipal corporation does not have their consumer data due to which they could not issue water tax bills. Subsequently, municipal commissioner Astik Kumar Pandey had said that that he will seek data from the previous water supply company in return of clearance of its outstanding dues.

Tax officer Karan Chavan on Thursday said that the AMC has received the data for 1.30 lakh water consumers from the water supply company. “The data includes all the consumers that were being taxed by the compa0ny in 2016. The data was bifurcated into different zones. We have forwarded the data to the respective zones,” Chavan said.