Few water lines billed, board to launch survey

HYDERABAD: In order to find the exact number of commercial properties which have domestic water connections in its jurisdiction, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has decided to commission a survey by state-owned consultancy Telangana State Technology Services (TSTS). Reason: Of 9.65 lakh water connections, about 30,000 are being billed as per commercial tariff according to its own records.

"With no update in the water board records on commercial connections, we have been losing crores of rupees (revenue). For this, we have approached the Telangana State Technology Services (TSTS) to utilise information and technology services to conduct a survey on commercial establishments (360 Degree survey) and chose O&M Division-VI (SR Nagar), which has a huge number of commercial establishments, on pilot project," HMWS&SB chief general manager-Revenue S Anand Swaroop told TOI.

As per the water board records, the SR Nagar division has 82,000 connections. Of



them, 6,583 were commercial ones, who have arrears of `4 crore.

The water board has noticed that many property owners converted their residential properties to commercial ones, but consumers were still paying domestic category tariff.The water board had also given an opportunity to such consumers to change the connections to commercial category, but there was no response from the property owners, he said.

The water board has decided to carry out a survey of commercial establishments at SR Nagar, Ameerpet, Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Somajiguda, Yousufguda and other areas next week.

After completing the survey, the water board would convert domestic connections, where business establishments were operating into commercial ones. Accordingly , the water board would issue monthly bills on commercial tariff. For this process, it would take at least a couple of months, the official added.

A similar survey would be taken up in other O&M divisions in the city, Anand Swaroop said.