Hyderabad: Illegal water trade continues to thrive in the city’s colonies.With commercial agencies in residential areas consuming large quantities of groundwater, residents fear that if the trend continues, the borewells in their areas could dry up soon.
With huge demand and advance bulk bookings for summer, several vendors tie up with owners of open plots. They take the land on rent, dig a six-and-a-half inch borewell (illegal in Greater Hyderabad limits) and extract water.
In 2014, the city had more than 450 private water traders. Even if a vendor charges Rs 500 for a 5,000-litre tanker, with a sale of 10 tankers, the vendor makes Rs 5,000 a day. Meanwhile the price increases by 40 per cent in summer.
The business of private water is thriving in areas like Kukatpally, Serilingampally, Miyapur, Patancheru, Alwal, Med-chal and Saroornagar colonies. As per the Water Air Land and Trees Act (WALTA), commercialization of borewells in residential areas is prohibited.
The Act states that committees formed by the mandal revenue officer are empowered to raid and seize illegal commercial bore wells, levy fines and prosecute the violators. One such recent example was at Alwal wherein the owner of a 100 square yard property had rented it out. A six-and-a-half inch borewell was dug and the site had turned into a filing station.
However, the locals protested and the business was stopped. Another commercial bore at present is extracting groundwater at Jyothi Nagar, near the PVNR expressway. While there are several such examples in the city, many apartments have already made advance bookings till the end of summer. Every area has around three water agencies.
G.V. Rao, general secretary of Greater Alwal Allied Society Association said, “Not only in residential colonies, digging of six-and-a-half inch borewell anywhere in Greater Hyderabad is illegal.
That apart, when an owner is paying residential tax, he/she cannot do business, which means a property owner cannot rent it out for business. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is the local authority as it collects tax, and it can also seize the property in case of water trade.”
Bill payment by cheques to stop:
In the last two months, the Water Board had issued more than 1,000 red notices to consumers who had failed to pay their bills in the last few years. The authorities are now gearing up to issue property attachment notices under the Revenue Recovery Act.
Meanwhile, having faced many cheque bounce cases, the Water Board has announced that it will not accept cheques for payment of water supply and sewerage bills from consumers from February 2.
Consumers can pay their water and sewerage bills online at www.esevaonline.telangana.gov.in, www.meeseva.gov.in, www.aponline.gov.in and www.hyderabadwater.gov.in. They can also make third party transfers over net banking.
Consumers can also pay via the SBM (Spot Billing Machine) payment method at their doorsteps as and when the bill is issued, at Water Board cash counters and at MeeSeva counters.
Responding to complaints of bills not being issued to consumers, a Water Board official said, “There are no complains of bills not being issued. There are over 500 members on the field, equipped with handheld ma-chines, who issue bills and also collect payments every month. If there are any such problems, consumers can approach the regional Water Board office or can also call the customer care number 155313.”
Water consumers of the Secunderabad Cant-onment Board (SCB), meanwhile, have been complaining of not receiving bills for the last several months. Officials, however, say that they issue bills once every three months unlike the Water Board.
“Bills used to be issued once every four months. Now, we have made it three months. The next set of bills will be issued in February. However, starting from next month, we will also issue alerts for water bill every month to the consumers’ registered mobile numbers,” said S. Raj Kumar, superintendent (water wing), SCB.
