HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy is said to have cleared the decks for the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) proposal to hike the water tariff for bulk consumers. But, he wanted the lower income households in the domestic category to be spared from the tariff revision plan.

However, HMWSSB Managing Director K.S. Jawahar Reddy said a final decision on the matter was yet to be taken. "We had only broached the matter with the Chief Minister in the context of ways and means to increase the revenue for the board. We have to work out the modalities, including scope to bring in high-end consumers in the domestic category into the ambit of the tariff revision. But it will be mostly the non-domestic sector that will have to pay more," he maintained.

Board meeting

The matter is likely to be finalised at the HMWSSB board meeting to be chaired by the Chief Minister, who is also the chairman of the water board, later this month.

The last tariff revision was made in February 2005, when the differential slab system was introduced.

With the new instalment of hike, the Board hopes to raise additional revenue to meet the increased operational costs - Rs. 8 crores per month alone on power charges for pumping Krishna water to the city in addition to Rs. 4 crores debt servicing burden on the project. With the second phase of the Krishna water project also likely to be commissioned later this year, the board sought clearance from the State Government for a steep tariff hike or grant of subsidy to bail it out from the financial quagmire.

The water board had also sought the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) to reduce its power tariff to Rs. 1.20 per unit from the present Rs. 3.95 per unit in the wake of heavy operational costs of pumping Krishna water to the twin cities, but to no avail.

A kilolitre of Krishna water costs the Board Rs. 18 when compared to Rs. 3.50 per kilolitre in the case of Osmansagar and Himayatsagar and Rs. 8 each for Singur and Manjira. "There is a glaring anomaly in the power tariff structure with the water board being treated under HT industrial category though it predominantly supplies drinking water and 95 per cent of its consumers are under domestic category," officials pointed out.

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