– Our Correspondent –
In the matter of drinking water tax, the fraud of 2,563 consumers came to light during the address comparison field survey. The board has taken action to collect compensation of Rs 1.50 crore. In this situation, drinking water board has decided to compare the addresses of electricity board consumers every year and take action.
There are 9.91 lakh drinking water and waste water connections in 15 mandals of Chennai Corporation. 100 crore liters of drinking water is distributed daily.
Out of this, 13.96 lakh people pay tax and 9.13 lakh people pay fees.
In respect of drinking water, waste water, residential connection, commercial connection and temporary connection are provided.
Temporary attachment is provided when old house is demolished and new house is built. For this, one has to pay Rs 25,000 and get a hand pump drinking water connection and a waste water connection in one toilet facility.
When buying a ‘plan’ to construct a building, you have to pay the road disconnection fee for the new link and purchase the new link.
But some people get a new connection for bank loan, property transfer requirement and pay taxes and fees for the first half year.
Loss of revenue
From next year, they will keep the receipt of the old building and pay lower taxes and fees. They hide the fixed rate for the new house.
For the same residential address, two tax numbers are registered with the Board. This results in loss of revenue to the Board.
Also, they get connection for home use and rent for commercial use. This also results in loss of revenue.
To find all this, the drinking water board does not have enough staff and infrastructure. The drinking water board collects the tax based on the municipal tax assessment. The Water Board does not have a list of exact residential and commercial usage.
Thus, it was decided to get the addresses of specific consumers from the Electricity Board on a trial basis and compare them with the addresses of the Water Board consumers.
For this purpose, the addresses of 36 thousand 740 consumers were obtained from the Electricity Board and distributed zone wise.
Based on this, the drinking water board staff directly engaged in the field survey. This work started in October last year. Currently, 100 percent comparison work is complete. Out of a total of 36,740 people, 2,563 were found to be involved in fraud by concealing commercial use.
As a result, there was a loss of revenue to the Board of Rs 1.50 crore. Steps are being taken to recover this amount. Of this, 48 lakh rupees were collected. The remaining amount is collected.
In this context, the Board has decided to conduct an annual benchmarking exercise to detect commercial usage fraud.
The electricity board staff will directly visit every two months and do the calculation to know whether the building is for residential or commercial use. Based on this, we bought and compared electrical addresses and found a difference in the accounts of 2,563 people. Following this, we are charging Rs 1.50 crore by issuing a ‘notice’ on the basis of commercial use.
— Water Board officials.
More difference
A comparison of consumer accounts across all zones revealed that Ambattur zone was the highest, with 690 out of 4,800 people having a discrepancy. Here, 299 people have to pay 30.27 lakh rupees. In Alandur mandal, out of 3,076 people, 329 people were found to have a difference. In this, reassessment is done due to error in determination of tax on commercial basis.