The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Separate tariff for only sewerage connections

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Wednesday, Jul 07, 2010
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Separate tariff for only sewerage connections

J.S. Ifthekhar

4,000 premises not paying monthly charges for last 20 years

Hyderabad: If you don't have a water connection, still you have to pay for the sewerage that is let out.

Beginning this month end, the HMWSSB has decided to collect sewerage cess from the premises which have only sewerage connection.

For the first time, a new monthly tariff policy for sewerage alone has been prepared and the cess will be levied accordingly.

Tax net

As many as 4,000 premises in the city have taken sewerage connections after paying the due charges but they are not paying any monthly charges for the last 20 years.

The Water Board has now wakened to the loss it has suffered all these years and decided to bring these premises under the tax net.

Usually the Board collects 35 per cent of the charges levied for supplied water as sewerage cess.

All the 7.35 lakh connections are paying both the water and sewerage charges while the 4,000 premises which don't take the Board's water but use its sewerage network are not paying a single pie.

They include countless function halls, malls, hotels and office complexes. All of them depend on tankers for their water needs, but their sewage is handled by the Board. These premises generate huge volume of sewage which ultimately enters the transmission system of the Board, it is said.

As such, the Board has now come up with a separate tariff policy covering residential, individual domestic, individual non-domestic, multi-storeyed residential complexes, commercial complexes, shopping malls, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, guest houses, cinema halls, multiplexes and function halls.

Feeding data

Any premises with plinth area up to 80 sq. mt will not be charged anything while areas between 81 to 200 sq. mt have to pay Rs. 50 per month.

The maximum charges are up to Rs. 10,000 and above for hotels and guest houses depending on the number of rooms.

The Board is now in the process of feeding the data of the 4,000 premises in its system so that the bill could be generated automatically.

“By month end we will start levying the charges,” said K. Ashok Reddy, executive director, HMWSSB.

Once the existing sewerage connections are covered, the Board plans to go after the illegal ones. For this, it is proposed to take the help of GHMC property tax data to check each and every premises.

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