An NOC from the corporation is vital for the slum dwellers to seek electricity connections for their huts and for several other Government benefit schemes.

Since the last financial year (1997-98), the PMC had stopped issuing NOC to slum dwellers who have to pay service charge arrears. The elected members had strongly opposed the move accusing the administration of being "anti-poor".

It was being perceived that the administration would desist from continuing the policy this year, in view of strong opposition from elected members. However, Municipal Commissioner Ramanath Jha seems to have taken an offensive stance and has in fact raised the service charge recovery target for the current financial year (1998-99) to Rs 6 crore.

According to the1991 census, 7.5 lakh citizens reside in 450 slums in the city. According to a survey undertaken by the PMC, the number of huts in the city is over 1.5 lakh. The PMC provides essential civic services to these hutment dwellers, like water and sanitation, irrespective of whether it is a declared slum (authorised) or undeclared slum (unauthorised).

It was in 1987 that the PMC imposed a "service charge" -- Rs 192 per year per hut -- for civic services provided by it. However, recovery of these charges remained insignificant over the years, thanks to the elected members who were keen on protecting their vote banks.

The recovery was so poor that by 1994-95 financial year the outstanding dues swelled to the tune of Rs 16.70 crore. By March 1995, the PMC had managed to recover just Rs 3.5 crore. In the next two years (1995-96 and 1996-97) only Rs 2.5 crore were recovered.

It was then that the administration decided to adopt a tough stand and in 1997-98 the PMC stopped clearing NOC applications of defaultingslum dwellers, unless they paid arrears in installments of Rs 250 per month.

This had a desired effect and during the last year Rs 2.5 crore were recovered. However, still Rs 8.2 crore are outstanding and the PMC aims to recover Rs 6 crore during this financial year by continuing its tough stand over clearing NOC applications.