The Kodariya gram panchayat, biggest gram panchayat of Mhow Tehsil which is also a big hub of Potato chips manufacturing in Madhya Pradesh, is a defaulter of around Rs 13 crores of water tax amount payable to the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC).

There are hundreds of factories running in Kodariya gram panchayat for manufacturing potato chips where thousands of labourers from nearby district are engaged and also hundreds of private colonies and new townships are coming up in this Kodariya gram panchayat

The IMC provides Narmada water from its pipeline to Kodariya gram panchayat and due to nonpayment of pending Rs 13 crore, IMC has severed the water connection of gram Panchayat Kodariya and more than 25,000 people are now facing acute shortage of water.

EE of IMC, Sanjeev Shrivastava, told The Pioneer that Kodariya gram panchayat consumes a heavy amount of water every month and according to our meter reading, we charge Rs 9 lakh monthly as water tax.

For the past 5 years of this present Kodariya gram panchayat Sarpanch Anuradha Joshi tenure, the total amount of water tax reached up to Rs 5.40 crore, including the pending amount of previous years it reached upto Rs 13 crore.

In past five years, Kodariya gram panchayat has not deposited the water tax of even 1 month and they have deposited the water tax only Rs 6.5 lakh against Rs 13 crore.

Locals said that the Sarpanch of Kodariya gram panchayat Anuradha Joshi has also received the Prime Minister award for village empowerment in the year 2018 but the true face of Kodariya gram panchayat is different.

People are facing scarcity of drinking water and the cleanliness condition of gram panchayat Kodariya is in worse condition as the segregation centre for which Kodariya gram panchayat has received lakhs of Government money for construction of segregation centre for dry and wet garbage is incomplete and the Government of India’s Swatch Bharat Abhiyan is in poor condition and Kodariya gram panchayat is sending its garbage to the trenching ground of Mhow cantonment board for disposals since years and recently Mhow cantonment board has also stopped talking garbage from Kodariya gram panchayat and now again the heap of garbage can be seen frequently at many places of Kodariya gram panchayat.