No water meters installed, but in Mohali, bills pour in

MOHALI: The public health (rural) wing of the Mohali Municipal Corporation (MC) has issued water bills to a few residents without installation of water meters. Residents of Kumbra village and Sector 68 were shocked when they received bills of Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500. Consumers have approached the MC complaining about the anomaly.
Work on installation of water meters was outsourced by the MC’s public health wing.During checking, MC officers learnt that the contractor discontinued work on installation of water meters for non-clearance of payment despite 90% of the work being completed. Water supply was not started but consumers alleged that they received bills.
Gurcharan Singh, one of the affected consumers, said, “We had applied for a new water connection and to our surprise, we were issued water consumption bill worth Rs 2,500 even though there was no water supply at the said premises.”
Other residents, Charan Singh, Mukhtar Singh and Baljit Singh went to the MC office to lodge their complaint after receiving bills amounting to Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500.
Residents said around 30 to 40 consumers received water bills in the village.
Public health (rural) executive engineer Sahil Sharma said, “We have not started issuing any bills at present. But if some consumers have received the bill I will get it checked. Sometimes, bills belong to previous owner. The process of printing the bills will start once the completion report is filed by the department and water supply is initiated.”
Contractor Maninder Singh said he has stopped installation work as the public health department has not cleared his payment of Rs 1.35 crore. Maninder said, “We have completed around 90% of the work of laying of pipeline, installation of water meters and replacement of existing pipelines for which payment clearance bills have been submitted with the public health department. We have only been paid Rs 68 lakh against pending bills of Rs 1.35 crore.”
Countering the contractor’s claims, executive engineer Sahil Sharma said, “According to the government system, department can only clear bills of works which have been duly inspected and after the contractor has obtained work completion clearance from the department. Payment cannot be released till the contractor gets NoC for completed works from the department.”
Deputy mayor Manjit Singh Sethi has sought an RTI enquiry alleging that against the deposit work worth Rs 1.67 crore, the MC has already paid Rs 1.43 crore to the public health (rural) department, but the money has been used for some other work.
Sethi said, “Detailed information regarding the usage of funds have been sought from the department. This is termed as deposit work and the funds cannot be used anywhere except for the work for which they have been allocated. If work is not completed, funds have to surrendered to the parent agency. But here, funds seem to have been used for some other work.”