CHENNAI: Would you pay for a facility that hasn’t been provided to you yet? Looks like the residents of Skypark Apartments on the Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Link Road might have to, with the Pallavaram Municipality asking them to pay underground drainage (UGD) charges even without giving them a connection.
All 73 occupants of this high-rise have been asked to pay `1,500 along with their property tax as UGD charges for the 2018-19 financial year, even as the apartment complex continues to depend on the in-house sewage treatment plant.
While seeking approval for the 207 flats in 2012, a sum of `20,70,000 was paid to the Municipality for UGD connections, but the civic body is yet to provide the connections much to the woe of the occupants.
“This money has been sitting with the Municipality for over six years. Not using it to provide a basic amenity such as drainage connection and letting the amount collect interest is unacceptable,” said V Ramakrishnan, the president of Skypark Residences Flat Owners Association, explaining that the municipality has failed to act, despite active participation from the residents association.
The residents association in April had submitted individual applications for all the occupied flats and deposited a combined sum of `37,230 for connections. The Municipality issued a work in June, but residents allege that there haven’t been developments since. “The municipal engineer keeps telling us that he’ll send a surveyor to begin works,” said Thilak Lohiya, secretary of the apartment’s resident welfare association, claiming that the road cutting charges for the apartment’s connection were also paid immediately.
The Municipality provided UGD for the neighbouring localities in 2014, four years after the apartment’s developer paid UGD charges while seeking approval.
“This clearly shows that the Municipality ignored the fact that 207 occupants were soon going to occupy the apartment they had given approval for,” said S Balakrishnan, vice president of the Skypark Residences Flat Owners Association.Municipal engineer Karuppiah Raju was not available for comment.