June 27: Consumers are angry over the manner the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) issues its water bills. In a memorandum to the Municipal Commissioner Girish Gokhale the vice president of the Federation of Bombay Small Industries Associations, V K Shankar Narayan took strong exception to the civic administration delaying the bills.

In his letter Narayan said, it is rather surprising and indeed annoying to see the BMC reaching their water bills for the months of March, April and May 1997 as late as today, as usual this will be immediately followed by a `48-hours notice' with a threat to disconnect water, he said.

He said that another irritating act of BMC is charging very heavy deposits for water from consumers, apart from depriving interest on deposit to consumers unlike other utilities including MSEB, MTNL. The BMC alone escapes without paying interest on deposits.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.