Those property owners who do not have water connection are entitled to pay double sewerage tax which the civic body charges through water charges (sewerage charge: 60 per cent of water charge) and as one of the components of property tax (sewerage tax: 39 per cent for residential and 79 per cent for commercial).

However, as per the provisions, the component of sewerage tax is deleted after property owners get their own water connection. Citizens are not entitled to pay double sewerage tax from the date they get their water connection. However the civic administration has come across 5,891 bills from later 1990s till 2007 of the citizens who were paying double sewerage tax, majority staying in buildings in the city and from the suburbs.

Joint Municipal Commissioner (Improvement) V Radha said that lack of co-ordination and delay in identification of legitimate water connection had resulted in the backlog. “By April when the property tax bills are issued, citizens who were till now paying double sewerage tax should be relieved,” she said. The civic administration will also hold a joint meeting with the water department and assessment department to clear the issue and delete the ‘double levy of sewerage charges’.

Radha said that the citizens were charged double to encourage property owners to take legal water connection. “However, in the process, the honest tax payers who had taken water connection too were subjected to this double levy. This fault will be cleared soon,” she said.

According to the rules, water connection was not granted by the BMC if the building does not have occupancy certificate or completion certificate. Residents of buildings who did not have any of these certificates were subjected to double levy of sewerage charges. In these cases, the civic administration provided temporary connection on humanitarian grounds.

Officer on special duty, RR Hariname said that citizens without official water connection would access water through tankers or other private means. “In these cases, no tax was paid by the citizens for the sewerage generated and BMC had to take the load. Therefore additional sewerage tax was levied on those without water connection,” he said.

A resolution passed by the civic body in 2001, amended the rule and regularised the temporary connection into a tenement connection. “Such connections are not conditioned to double sewerage tax, however lack of identification would have resulted in these cases,” he said.

Liason officer (city) Aparna Bhagat said that maximum cases of the identified 5,891 will be cleared by February end. “We had undertaken mass cancellations in 1993-94 and same will be carried out now. Maximum double levy bills will be cleared on priority and war footing,” she said.