HYDERABAD: The Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) has decided to hike drinking water charges within the next couple months and once the Angadipet water pipeline project, expected to bring in an extra 15 lakh gallons per day (lgpd), becomes operational.

The charges for metered connections are to be hiked from Rs. 75 to Rs. 125 per month per connection while for non-metered connections, it would be from Rs. 225 to Rs. 400 per month per connection.

For apartments it will depend on the number of units.

`Hike long overdue'

Cantonment Executive Officer V. Premchand feels the hike is long overdue and in any case, the SCB was heavily subsiding water supply to residents and it incurs an expenditure of Rs. 1.25 crores each year, earning a meagre Rs. 10-15 lakhs in revenue.

It also spends close to Rs. 10 crores for annual maintenance, Rs. 10 lakhs for paying power bills for its more than 300 submersible pumps and pumping stations, beside also supplying free water of 2.5 lakh litres by tankers making 50 trips a day.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) currently supplies 27 lakh gallons a day as against the demand for 50-lakh gallons day.

The supply will increase to 45 lakh gallons a day after Angadipet project is commissioned.

Daily water supply

The Rs.1 crore, 11 km water pipeline, which will greatly improve water supply especially in Bowenpally, where even daily water supply will be possible, is the sugar coating the SCB wants to give to its move to hike the charges.

All this, however, is not for this summer and cantonment residents will have to bear with the current shortage of water supply.

But, the proposal for tariff hike only clouds the inefficiency in the water billing and collection system within the SCB.

Unaccounted water

There is no proper record of the number of water connections itself in the area and even officials admit that more than 40 per cent of the water delivered is not accounted for.

Moreover, there is no differentiation of tariff between a bulk water user for commercial purposes and others for individual connections.

This when the HMWSSB itself supplies water to the SCB on the bulk water charge!

"We have no proper mechanism to either issue bills or collect the fees properly," admits an official.

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