Telangana is big water bill defaulter

Hyderabad: Government offices have been identified major defatulter of water bills with arrears amounting to lakhs of rupees. Thousands of litres of water is supplied to the offices every day.

Following this, Metro Water Board managing director M. Dana Kishore has set a deadline of July 30 for all consumers, including individual house owners and commercial outlets, to pay their dues. He said the staff has been directed to focus is on major commercial consumers instead of small and shops.

According to the records, the board supplies water to 8 lakh connections including government, domestic and commercial consumers. Mr Kishore said consumers owed the board Rs 790 crore of which Rs 190 crore was due from government  departments.

Another Rs 200 crore are stuck in disputes. The rest of the money, amounting to about Rs 400 crore, needs to be collected in six months.

“Staff has asked to be on a collection spree similar to that of GHMC the for property taxes and trade licences. There are hundreds of commercial establishments and individual houses that have not paid for months and are due crores of rupees. These defaulters manage by paying the line men or staff during inspections, board officials said. The board used to hold one-time settlements for certain ceategories of consumers. No such scheme has been announced now.