Hyderabad: More than half old city doesn't pay water bills

Hyderabad: A major portion of the city’s water, 90 million gallons out of 350 MGD, goes to divisions 1 and 2 that comprise Char-minar, Malakpet, Chan-chalguda and areas south of the Musi.

These two divisions have the highest number of non-payers, according to Water Board data. Charminar, in division 1,  has 92,000 connections and gets 50 MGD of water but not even 40,000 consumers pay their bills, many of the rest do so irregularly.

In peripheral areas like LB Nagar, 24 MGD is supplied to 1 lakh connections and 90 per cent of consumers pay their bills.

The board is having a tough time in collecting bills as staff fear to enter these areas, and consumers don’t allow the staff to disconnect supply.

The board’s percentage of non-revenue water — water that is supplied for which the Board does not get revenue — has mounted to 40. This includes water leaking from pipelines. 

The lost revenue to the board: Rs 60 crore a month.

Also, for pumping of the water itself, the board spends more than Rs25 crore per month.

Water Board director, operations and maintenance, G. Rameshwar Rao said the board was considering fixing district metering areas. This would group meters of a particular locality to measure the non-revenue water. “We will get to know if the water supplied is matching the water consumed. If not, we will need to follow a protocol to check various sources of non-revenue water,” he said.