Hyderabad: While the city’s suburban areas have seen huge mushrooming of residential apartments, lack of proper water supply has led to 80 to 100 per cent dependency on tanker water.
This has resulted in maintenance charges shooting up to Rs 5,000 per month in areas like Miyapur and Madinaguda. Many other areas have seen a big jump in the maintenance costs on account of water supply, including Sainikpuri and Shamshabad.
As per experts, the reason for this huge increase on one hand, is the mismanagement of the Water Board and on the other, the burden of 60 per cent of citizens not paying their dues to the Board for their water connections.
“We have been informed that our maintenance charges will be up from Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 per month for three months due to additional charges on water and diesel backup for lifts,” said Ramakant Rao, a resident of a housing society in Madinaguda.
Chelukani Rao, president of United Federation of Residents Welfare Associations said that there was a lot of mismanagement in the water supply which was ultimately adding to the maintenance cost. “At least 40 per cent of the houses get additional charges due to mismanagement of water supply. Most resident associations do not take into account the fact that the tankers do not have lids and keep spilling water the entire way and therefore they do not get the full supply. Similarly there is lot of wastage in common areas like lawns, parking etc. and that ultimately leads to an increase in bills,” he said.
A part of the problem is also the unaccounted water connections which ultimately leads to more burden falling on the 40 per cent of citizens who pay their bills. “The bills could be slightly lesser if everyone was paying their dues. However, there is also an issue of many builders not declaring the buildings as apartment buildings and hence leading to a situation that water is supplied for a lesser number of flats. This too adds to the burden as dependence on private supply increases,” added Mr Rao.
