The Hindu

Udupi, feb 29: The Udupi City Municipal Council (CMC), in its first general body meeting here on Thursday, reduced the piped water connection charges from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 2,000.

Dinakar Shetty, president of the CMC, said this reduction was applicable to applicants from general category. For applicants from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the charges had been reduced from Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 1,000. There would be no water connection charges for people from Koraga community. Those having old connections would have to pay Rs. 500 to get a new connection under “Swarna Second Stage”, instead of Rs. 1,000 announced earlier.

When Mohan Upadhyaya, councillor, asked about reimbursement of the balance amount to those who had paid Rs. 4,000, Mr. Shetty said it would be adjusted in their future bills.

Stormy scenes were witnessed at the beginning of the meeting when Nityananda Volakadu, independent councillor, said that many parts of the city were facing water shortage and urged the issue to be taken up for discussion. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillors said that Question Hour was not on the agenda of the meeting. Mr. Volakadu said that the agenda copies sent to councillors mentioned the Question Hour. The BJP councillors, who started thumping their desk, said the councillors had been informed the previous evening that there would be no Question Hour. Councillor Anandi (Congress) said an important issue such as scarcity of water could not be brushed aside. Mr. Shetty ruled that the Question Hour was not on the agenda and the election of CMC’s standing committee should be taken up. Eleven members were chosen to the standing committee. They are: Panduranga Malpe, Ravi Amin, Naveen Bhandary, M.R. Pai, Shyamprasad Kudwa, Yashpal Suvarna, Prabhakar Poojary, S. Lakshmi, N. Sandhya, Narayana and Jayananda.

After the election, Ms. Anandi said although water connection under the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environment Project had broken down in Dalit Colony at Malpe three months ago, no action had been taken. It was clarified that of the 47 complaints received from the area, 46 had been attended to. The only pending complaint would soon be attended. To an allegation by Kiran Kumar, councillor, that some personnel who went for reading water meters, had misbehaved with people, CMC commissioner, said the council was thinking of outsourcing meter reading.