MC’s tough act on challans falls flat with low recoveries

Ludhiana: Despite civic officials’ claims of tough action taken against illegal construction work, there is a wide gap between the number of challans issued and payment recovered from defaulters. The building branch is struggling to recover the amount. For violations above Rs 25,000, officials have issued 3,138 challans to people from whom Rs 35.54 crore was supposed to be recovered. However, only Rs 6.60 crore has been recovered till now. Officials claimed that the recent collection was being done on priority but old challans were not recoverable.
Maximum number of challans have been issued in Zone D area. Here, 1,249 challans were issued and Rs 10.97 crore was supposed to be recovered but officials could recover only Rs 1.47 crore and Rs 9.49 crore is pending. From zone C, Rs 15.34 crore was supposed to have been recovered from 873 challans but only Rs 3.55 crore has been recovered so far. Other zones are also lagging in achieving their targets. From zone A, Rs 3.04 crore was supposed to be recovered from 390 challans but only Rs 59 lakh has been recovered and from zone B, against Rs 5.18 crore, only Rs 98 lakh has been recovered.
Joint commissioner Ankur Mahindroo said, “We have issued very clear instructions to building branch officials to not allow illegal construction work and if it has happened, then recover the challan amount from defaulters. There are certain challans which were issued in the past years and these are still pending.” He also said that there were hefty water supply and sewer dues.
Raising questions on the MC, activist Kapil Arora said that while they claimed to acting tough against defaulters, they had failed to catch them. He also said that he had raised the issue with the local bodies department so that strict action could be taken against errant officials.
During his recent visit to the city, local bodies minister Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar held building branch officials responsible for illegal construction work. He said he would not spare officials who did not perform their duty.