Pic: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Aug 28: A delegation representing Catholic Sabha, Kulshekhar unit, met city mayor, Rajani Dugganna, and commissioner, Vijayaprakash, on Friday August 27, and submitted a memorandum to them, urging the city corporation to extend more facilities to the citizens of the city.

The demands listed out in the memorandum are, waiver of 2% per month interest for those who pay their pending house tax dues during the present fiscal, and making ammendments to the rules to spare the citizens of the ordeal to stand in long queues to get their self-assessment tax booklets filled in. The Sabha has pointed out that the insistence of the city corporation that the taps and water meters should be got repaired by the consumers is wrong, as the responsibility of laying pipelines and fixing of meters vests with the corporation.

The memorandum says that the task of water meter reading should be entrusted back to the employees of the corporation, as the private meter readers have not been executing their jobs satisfactorily. It has demanded for a separate counter for accepting water bills, arrangement for accepting bills in all the local banks on all working days, extending electronic clearing system facility for payment of bills, facilitating the consumers to give permission in advance to cut the roads, as the same is not permitted during monsoon months, and fixing of a time frame for allotting building licence, water connection, underground drainage facility and house numbers to those who comply with all the rules.

At the same time, the Catholic Sabha has insisted that it is the duty of the corporation officials to conduct regular inspections during the execution of works, and hence wherever substandard works are witnessed, it has demanded that the contractors and officials should be held jointly responsible.

Sushil Noronha, political awareness convenor of the Sabha, handed over the memorandum. Catholic Sabha president, Maria Pinto, secretary, Pouline D’Souza, Alban Pinto, Pravin Patrao, Stany Pinto, Henry D’Souza, Prescilla D’Souza and Maria D’Souza, who were the members of the delegation, accompanied him.