Verification camps set up by the GDA fail to attract residents and AOAs
It's been four days since GDA started accepting the banned denominations of 500- and 1,000-rupee notes as maintenance charges. However, its efforts were met with a tepid response from residents.
GDA had organised two camps at Gyan Khand and Niti Khand in Indirapuram to verify the bills and challans, from November 21-24.
According to supervisors at the two camps, both the sites have cumulatively verified bills worth Rs 16,22,000 so far. The officials had earlier confirmed that GDA was owed approximately Rs 20-25 crore in maintenance charges.
Speaking to City Spidey, Chakresh Jain, superintending engineer, GDA, said the response from individual households and AOAs was dissapointing. "We were hoping that individuals and AOAs would come forward and clear their long-pending payments. Instead, the camps saw a daily footfall of only 10-12 people," Jain rued.
In fact, the highest footfall in a day was just 19. GDA officials attributed the low numbers to the fact that the civic authority could not back its efforts with any legal compulsion. Hence, the residents had it easy.
The officials further said that despite the non-payment, GDA could not stop maintenance services such as sewage disposal and cleaning of neighbourhoods, as this would also affect those who had rightfully paid their bills.
City Spidey spoke to Sharat Jha, president of Consortium of Societies Ghaziabad (COG), about the matter. He explained that maintenance charges of several societies were pending since the time they were being maintained by builders.
Jha added, that GDA, in several instances, issued a consolidated bill of all flats to the AOAs, including the builder's dues, amounting to several lakhs. "Residents are not ready to pay that amount. The only way of clearing payments is to break down this consolidated amount into individual household bills, and rebate the builder's dues from it," he reasoned.
