KOCHI: It was not all water under the bridge! Angamaly municipality was in for a rude shock when the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) dropped a “humongous” bill for Rs 3.68 crore, which included outstanding dues. And when the authority pointed its finger at public taps, the municipality initiated a cost-cutting measure, doing away with all public taps in its jurisdiction.
Municipality chairperson Mathew Thomas and the councillors, however, decided to compensate beneficiaries by providing them free water connections. The process of disconnecting the last set of 50 taps and the providing free connections to affected households was completed the other day.
“We were served the bill in question a year ago. The usual amount was around Rs 10 lakh, but this was a humongous sum. We took up the issue with KWA and demanded a detailed bill, segregating every expense. But they failed to do so, and could only cite the public taps as the main reason. We didn’t want to incur such a huge expense and hence decided to remove all the public taps without causing any inconvenience to the public,” said Paul Jovar K, Mullassery councillor.
However, the councillors were not completely sold on the water authority’s reasoning and took it upon themselves to unearth the reason for the huge bill. And they initiated a series of correspondences with the KWA.
The municipality even appointed a dedicated woman employee to look into the matter. This helped “debunk” each of KWA’s claims. But the correspondence continued, as a result of which KWA agreed to slash the bill to Rs 68 lakh.
The municipality finally foot the bill, but continued to pursue the issue with KWA. “We now want them to give a detailed explanation as to how they arrived at the figures,” the councillor pointed out.
The local body has also initiated a series of measures to cut down on electricity costs as well. “We succeeded in bringing down the electricity bill from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 3 lakh over the last ten months. We want to cut down on unnecessary expenses and use the same for development purposes,” Paul said.
Major development work underway include the setting up of a material collection facility (MCF) at Josepuram and the renovation of the municipal park.