The Hindu 05.04.2013
Water Board to get tough with defaulters
The Water Board has decided to invoke Revenue Recovery
Act to realise its arrears. It has already served 300 ‘red notices’ to
chronic defaulters and if they fail to respond, they would be proceeded
against under the RRA. The matter has been referred to Chief
Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) and the Board is awaiting the
government’s nod to go ahead.
However, till then it
plans to take the help of district Collectors of Hyderabad and Ranga
Reddy to recover the dues under RRA. The Act empowers attachment of
mobile and immobile properties of the defaulters. The Board has taken
recourse to this stern measure in view of its mounting dues. However,
even before the Act is imposed in its totality, the red notices are
proving effective in bringing in the revenue.
For the
first time in its history, the Board is able to cross the barrier of 4
lakh paid CANS (Consumer Account Numbers). In March, a record 4.04 lakh
consumers out of 8 lakh paid their bills pushing the Board’s monthly
revenue to Rs. 53 crore. The last highest number of consumers who paid
bills in a month are 3.82 lakh. The Board aims at netting an average
monthly revenue of Rs. 60 crore by raising the number of paid CANS per
month to 4.3 lakh.
New managers
“Achieving
this target will be easy with the recruitment of 90 new managers soon.
They have been selected through APPSC,” said J. Syamala Rao, managing
director, HMWSSB.
The Board has identified 1,632
consumers who owe more than Rs. 1 lakh in arrears. The Board is in the
process of compiling a list of 20 such defaulters in each division for
forwarding to the district Collectors for recovery of dues under RRA.
This
apart, the Board is now more worried about its rising power bill. With
the latest hike in power tariff, the Board’s power bill is expected to
jump from Rs. 34 crore to Rs. 48 crore a month. This figure may go up
further when the Board starts pumping water in the days to come as the
falling water level in reservoirs makes drawal by gravity impossible.
When the power tariff was last revised on December 1, 2011, the Board
was paying Rs. 24 crore per month.
Interestingly, the
Board itself owes a whopping Rs. 180 crore towards power bill arrears.
But right now it is able to pay only the current month bills. All these
issues are proposed to be discussed in the next Board meeting and also
taken up with the Municipal Administration Minister, it is said.
