Mumbai: The state government had egg on its face when it was revealed in the Assembly on Monday that ministers have not paid their water bills for months. The amount due is staggering – Rs 8 crores.
Most of us commoners don’t have that privilege --- a water connection snaps in no time if a bill is pending for two to three months; but these ministers haven't paid their bills for more than 6 months and are living in sheer bliss.
The BMC also declared Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' residence 'Varsha' as a major defaulter. Apart from him, 19 ministers have the same dubious distinction. Opposition parties were quick to ridicule the state government for failing to pay the dues. They even sarcastically offered to foot the CM’s bill to avoid the ignominy of a severed connection.
This incriminating information was contained in the response to a Right to Information query filed by activist Shakil Ahmad Shaikh. The defaulter ministers include Sudhir Mungantiwar, Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde, Ra-mdas Kadam, Diwakar Ra-ote, Chandrashekhar Ba-wankule, Mahadev Jankar and Eknath Shinde. Former Ministers Eknath Khadse, Vi-shnu Sawara, Girish Bapat, Rajkumar Badole, Dr. Deepak Sawant and Chairman of Legislative Council Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar too are the same boat.
The newly elected Leader of Opposition in Assembly, Vijay Wadettiwar, had a dig at the defaulters and said the matter was indeed worrisome in view of the grim financial condition of the State.
The chief minister and his ministers have kept water bills pending. “Will the BMC, which cuts the water supply of common citizens, show the same courage and cut the supply to ministers residences,’’ Dhananjay Munde, leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, asked on Twitter.
NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad said with obvious sarcasm that he would clear the chief minister's (bungalow's) bill to ensure that the latter faces "no delay in taking a bath." And that would ensure "there is no delay in the government's decision-making".
Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar offered a curious defence and said it was not the ministers' fault. “The bungalows do not belong to an individual and are government property.
All bills are paid by the State government and we will soon clear the dues,” he said. "The water bills were last cleared in November 2018. The process got disrupted after a difference was noticed between bills cleared earlier and the ones received in May 2019.
The process of clearing the dues will resume immediately after tallying the figures," the state Public Works Department said in a press statement on Monday.
The PWD is tasked to maintain and pay the water and electricity bills of these bungalows. It said the process to clear the dues of the bungalows is an on-going one, with constant coordination between the PWD and the BMC.
Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, the mayor, too tried to downplay the controversy. “The irregularities in the payments will be removed after a detailed inquiry. The instructions for this have been given to the water department.
The bungalows of the Chief Minister and other ministers are official residences, they do not belong to an individual. I hope that the dues will be cleared soon.”Shakil Shaikh, who filed the RTI application, had another poser.
“The CM's residence uses 1600 units of water. One unit is equal to 1000 litres of water. Why is the CM's residence getting at least 50,000 litres of water per day?” he had demanded. There is no answer to that yet.
