Hyderabad: Defaulters are in for serious trouble as the metro water board began disconnection of sewer lines from Monday, with over 120 cuts effected on day one itself. The board has identified 3,000 defaulters who have not paid their bills for the past over two years. The board terms them as chronic defaulters who have not bothered to pay bills despite notices.
The board is faced with outstanding dues of '42 crore from water and sewerage payment defaulters. For those who have not paid the money for a year or six months, a notice had been issued with a deadline for payment. A majority of the violators are small-time hoteliers or those who run function halls, hostels etc. The board carried out disconnections in each of its divisions — 14 in Narayan-guda, four in Malakpet, and 41 in Charminar and other divisions in the south zone.
HMWSSB managing dire-ctor M. Dana Kishore said, “The board has identified over 3,000 chronic defaulters. However, this number might increase once physical inspections are carried out. For customers who ha-ve not paid for months, the board is issuing a warning with a deadline. However, those who have not paid for over two years and are still unwilling to pay up, will face the music. We will disconnect their lines. The bo-ard does not support disconnection, because it wou-ld cost more to identify the lines, disconnect, and then reconnect once the payment is made. However, there is a realisation that the defaulters will pay up only after such an action is taken.”
Customers installing wat-er meters on their own will be given a discount of five per cent on their monthly water bills for a year. As part of the voluntary disclosure scheme, over 25,000 illegal connection holders came forward for regularisation of their lines.
That apart, Customers installing water meters on their own will be given a discount of five per cent on their monthly water bills for a year. So far, over 30,000 customers have installed meters.
Water connections disconnected:
1. In November - 3,380
2. In December - 1,090
3. Total revenue collected from defaulter in two months - Rs 10.5crore
4. Pending revenue - Rs 42 crore
