Close on the heels of the Discoms’ move to hike power charges, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board is seriously considering a proposal to levy water-pumping surcharge on electricity consumers.
The proposal was discussed at a recent meeting chaired by the chief minister. Reddy asked officials to work out a system to levy water pumping surcharge on electricity consumers in Greater Hyderabad whether they are water consumers are not.
Chief secretary PK Mohanty also asked HMWS&SB officials to work out modalities and mechanism to levy water pumping surcharge on the consumers in the city, HMWS&SB officials told Express. As per HMWS&SB data, there are 7,97,562 consumers who have water connections. The water board supplies about 340 million gallons a Day (MGD) by pumping water from five reservoirs —Osmansagar (25 MGD), Himayatsagar (15 MGD), Singur (75 MGD), Manjira (45 MGD) and Akkampally-Krishna (180 MGD).
The Singur, Manjira and Akkampally-Krishna reservoirs are situated about 100 km away from where water is pumped to the city costing the board nearly `55 crore a. The water board has been paying APTransco only around `30 crore. The monthly revenue of the water board is about `55 crore as against the demand of `58.72 crore. The per unit pumping cost is 0.97 paise and the average cost of electricity per unit in city is `6. As a result, power dues have risen to `325 crore.