Secunderabad Cantonment Board disconnects 2,000 illegal water connections

Hyderabad: The cash-strapped Secunderabad Cantonment Board has toughened its stand against illegal water connections, and the bill defaulters. Special teams, in last two weeks disconnected over 2000 connections after issuing them red notices.

Officials say though on record there are only 15,800 water connections, over 45,000 connections exist. All these illegal connection came up in the last 15 years, when there was not much focus on bill collections and the SCB did not have adequate staff to collect bills from regular customers.

“We have disconnected over 2,000 illegal water connections. This includes the entire slum area in Marredpally including Sanjeevanagar, Valmikinagar and others where over 400 connections were cut off. We have issued red notices to all those who have illegal water connections and have defaulted on their water bills,” said Raj Kumar, SCB superintendent (water wing).

At the same time, the SCB is regularising water connections when defaulters are coming forward to pay the fine and deposits. The charge for regularisation of water connections for slums is Rs 5,000 and for colonies it has been fixed at Rs 15,000.

“We are also collecting 50 per cent of the monthly water bills. It is Rs 150 from the slums and Rs 315 from the colonies,” added the official. Having successfully covered all the areas in issuing the red notice, the SCB plans to continue the drive by forming more teams.

“So far, we have over five teams (comprising four members each), and are disconnecting over 250-300 connection on a daily basis. In two days we will strengthen the group into 25 teams by roping in staff from other wings of our Board and complete the disconnection  and regularisation process by July end,” said the official.

The Board is hopeful that the drive to collect arrears from defaulters would bring in enough revenues to tide over the crisis. Presently, the SCB owes Rs 36 crore to the Water Board.
The daily requirement is 53 lakh gallons for 4.3 lakh population.

Meanwhile, certain residents of the cantonment are complaining that they have been receiving notices since December and after years and it is becoming difficult for them to pay  for regularisation of the connection.

“For salaried individuals it becomes tough to pay such a large amount and keep to the household budget,” said Ramchander, a resident of Marredepally.

Meanwhile, In its move to streamline water bill inflow, SCB is all set to outsource the bill collection process. It has already consulted over five agencies, including those in contract with the Water Board. Till now, water bill collections in SCB happened once in six months.

To cater to over 16,800 regular customers, SCB water wing had a 10-member team that has been attending to issues like water bills and resolving complaints of leakages and polluted water. However, due to staff crunch, water bills were not being issued regularly resulting in huge revenue losses.

“We are working on the financial aspect with the agencies and will hopefully complete the procedure by July end when we will also have complete records of water connection,” said S. Rajkumar, superintendent SCB (water wing).

The Board is working on digitising the water connections and also started issuing unique consumer numbers. By August, SCB officials hope to regularise all the water connections.