Even a month after the state government started accepting applications for piped water connections at high-rises in Jaipur and other cities of Rajasthan, officials of the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) received only five applications till Monday evening.
Superintendent engineer of the South division, Anil Sharma, and the superintendent engineer of North division Ajay Singh Rathore have confirmed the development.
“We have received five applications till Monday evening. The applications have been forwarded to field officers for inspections,” said Sharma.
Areas like Mansarovar, Jyoti Nagar, C-scheme, Pratap Nagar, Malviya Nagar, Jagatpura and Civil Lines have large concentrations of high-rise buildings that fall under Sharma’s jurisdiction.
On the other hand, apart from the Walled City, areas like Bani Park and Jhotwara fall under the jurisdiction of the north division. “Under my division, till Monday evening, we had received no applications for high rise-water connections,” said Rathore.
PHED officials and members of Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) said that there were a few problems behind this low response from the residential units.
A prime reason is that a few areas in Jhotwara, Jagatpura, Prithwiraj Nagar, Pratap Nagar where there are concentrations of high rises are yet to have PHED pipeline connections. We are going to provide water connections to these areas within the next few months. Then, RWAs can apply for connections,” said a PHED official.
However, the number of high-rise buildings outside these areas are also huge. RWAs of areas with pipeline connections claimed that they are yet to apply because they have not been able to collect the entire amount to be paid as a one-time charge.
“We want to pay 25% of the one-time connection charge. Accordingly, we made a calculation and asked the flat owners to pay their contribution. Yet the amount has not been realised,” said Shailendra Agarwal, a member of RWA from Patrakar Colony in Mansarovar.
PHED officials claimed that these are teething problems, especially for those buildings or complexes where builders had already provided all possessions to the flat owners. In the long run the system would be regularised.”Although the notification stated that either the builders or the RWAs are liable to pay the one-time charges, most builders of under construction property had started collecting these charges from the flat owners at the time of booking. In future, it would be a trend that builders would apply and get the connections done before handing over the possession,” another PHED official said.