The Deccan Chronicle 27.09.2010
Water may cost more for a commercial userHyderabad, Sept. 26: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) is proposing to hike the water tariff for its commercial consumers at `35 per kl by creating a separate tariff slab for them. There will be no hike for domestic consumers.
The Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, had asked officials of the board to study the tariff structure in Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru and propose one for Hyderabad. The last revision to the tariff was made in January 2005 when six different slabs were created with no difference between domestic and commercial consumers. As a result, there is no uniform slab for commercial consumers who are paying different tariffs depending upon the slab they are covered by.
“We want to bring out a uniform slab for commercial consumers so they have to pay `35 per kl (one kl is equal to 1,000 litres) whether they use 15 kl or even 200 kl,” said a board official.
The executive director of the water board, Mr Ashok Reddy, said, “The water board incurs a cost of `24 to bring and supply one kl of water in the city from the Krishna Phase-I and II. Likewise, the expenditure is `20 per kl of water that is pumped from Singur and Manjira and `3.50 per kl in the case of Osmansagar and Himayatsagar.
