Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore

Mangalore, Oct 29 (The Hindu): The council of Mangalore City Corporation at its meeting on Thursday approved a proposal to constitute an enforcement cell comprising police personnel. The cell will deal with cases of building bylaw violations, encroachments and parking issues.

The cell will comprise a police sub-inspector, a head constable, four constables and two armed constables. The Police Department will depute them to the cell with legal powers and the corporation will pay their salaries.

An agenda note placed to this effect at the meeting said Minister for Urban Development S. Suresh Kumar at a review meeting here on June 9, 2010 asked the civic body to constitute such a cell.

The note said that the Revised Master Plan for Mangalore Local Planning Area has come into effect from September 2009. Any violation of this plan will attract stringent action.

The enforcement cell will deal with issues relating to evictions and Rule 31 of Karnataka Municipal Corporations Rules, 1977 permitted constituting such a cell.

The former Mayor M. Shankar Bhat told The Hindu that the corporation could constitute the cell only with the concurrence of the State Government.

A decade ago, the corporation did send such a proposal twice but the Government had turned it down citing shortage of funds.

“Then the corporation had limited Budget. Now it is in a position to pay their salaries. I hope the Government will approve it,” he said.

Water supply

Earlier in the Question Hour,  Bhat, who raised the subject of water supply, said although the corporation had 70,000 water supply connections, bills were issued to only 60,000 connections. Of them, users of only 30,000 connections were paying their bills regularly. It needed immediate attention as the civic body incurred revenue loss.

Anomalies

Many councillors said that anomalies in water bills continued. Some were getting hefty bills than the actual rates.

The Opposition members alleged that the civic body had failed to address such complaints. More water adalats should be held to resolve such complaints.

Corporation Commissioner K.N. Vijayaprakash said a special drive would be taken up to disconnect water supply to defaulters.

He said the civic body would set up a call centre for exclusively addressing water supply complaints.

He said the civic body collected Rs. 22 crore as revenue from water supply in 2009-10 against the demand for Rs. 32 crore.

It had earned Rs. 8 crore so far this financial year against the demand for Rs. 36.8 crore.

Chairman of the Standing Committee for Town Planning and Improvement Sudhir Shetty Kannur alleged that illegal tapping of water from the main supply line (from Thumbe to Mangalore) had been going on in the jurisdiction of Adyar and Padu Gram Panchayats.

He said the maintenance work of the main supply line should be outsourced to an agency by inviting bids.

However, the council did not take any decision on issues pertaining to water supply.

Special meeting

Vijayaprakash said a special meeting would e convened at the corporation on Tuesday next to discuss issues relating to construction activities in 20 wards which come under Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ).

The former Mayor M. Shashidhar Hegde from the Opposition alleged that 80 per cent of interior roads in all wards had been damaged. Even they were not fit for driving two-wheelers. He wanted to know when the civic body would repair them.