The Deccan Chronicle 04.10.2010
A quarter of city does not pay for its waterHyderabad, Oct. 3: One-fourth of the 7.4 lakh consumers, in terms of water connections, do not pay their monthly water bills regularly. About 1.92 lakh consumers have not been paying their bills for the past year, and their pending bills along with arrears have mounted to `100 crore.
Only 3 lakh consumers pay up their bills every month, statistics with the Water Board reveals. In the core city, there are 1.43 lakh defaulters of which 40 per cent are in the old city, and another 49,000 from the 12 surrounding municipalities.
Sources said it was during collection and upgradation of data that officials realised that 26 per cent of the consumers do not pay their bills regularly. The board does not have data on just who is not paying their bills. The officials also for at least 30,000 connections, their data was wrong.
A large number of consumers had enhanced the size of their water connection. In these cases, two different consumer account numbers had been created, and the consumers were getting two bills. A few of such consumers which most of such cases have gone to court.
Asked about this, the Water Board executive director, Mr Ashok Reddy, said only 3 lakh consumers pay their bills every month. He said the Board had started serving notices on defaulters to pay the bills along with arrears. “The Board is launching a disconnection drive against illegal connections,” he said.
Meanwhile the deadline for regularisation of illegal water connections has been extended up to October 30, following a large number of representations from MLAs and corporators.
