In 3 weeks, water board identifies 304 illegal connections in Secunderabad

SECUNDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has identified over 300 illegal water connections in the Secunderabad areas as part of a door-to-door survey conducted in various parts of the city in the last three weeks.
In order to reduce non-revenue generating water connections, the HMWS&SB launched a massive drive last month to identify those violating norms.As part of the drive, the HMWS&SB surveyed close to 15,000 water and sewerage connections in three divisions under which many Secunderabad areas fall. The data shared by the water board indicates that there were 201 illegal connections in division 5, 84 in division 6 and 19 in division 7, which covers areas such as Addagutta, Rezimental Bazaar, Jawahar Nagar, Greelands, Begumpet, Marredpally among others.

In the past few months, HMWS&SB has observed a drastic fall in its monthly revenue, despite providing potable water to consumers. “We observed that consumers in East Marredpally are particularly notorious in terms of illegal water connections. We found that many consumers had domestic water connection but used it commercially ,” said S Rajashekhar, general manager, HMWS&SB, division 7 (Marredpally).
After Marredpally, the survey teams have decided to spread its reach to other areas such as Prakash Nagar, Tarnaka, Bhoiguda, Nallagutta, Seethaphalmandi among others to weed out illegal water connections. Officials plan to complete the survey in all Secunderabad areas over the next two weeks.
“After completion of the survey, we will be sending the full and final data to the head office to decide on the further course of action against the defaulters. Based on the data, higher authorities will take a call on whether to regularize or penalize the defaulters,” added Rajashekhar.
As many as 150 teams conduct the door-to-door survey. A special format has been designed to obtain details of the consumers, such as type of water connection, monthly bills and their timely payments, status of water meter, type of property owned and extent of premises.
The water board estimates that after the survey, monthly bills could be increased up to Rs 2 crore.