HYDERABAD: Residents Secunderabad Cantonment Board can now heave a sigh of relief as drinking water will be supplied in the area on alternate days from July 1. At present, water is being supplied once in four days. SCB supplies drinking water to eight civilian wards.
The decision was taken at a special meeting of the board on Friday to discuss the water crisis and on revision of tariff.
The SCB also decided to allow those having illegal water connections to apply and get their connections regularised. Of more than 41,000 connections in SCB limits, about 10,000 are illegal. For regularisation of an illegal connection, a slum-dweller has to pay `3,000 and other residents `8,500. SCB owes the Water Board around `14 crore.
Speaking to Express, SCB vice-president J Ramakrishna said, “HMWS&SB is supplying about 65 lakh gallons of water to the Cantonment everyday, for which they are charging `13.6 per kilo-litre whereas they are charging just `7 per kilo-litre for water supplied to areas under jurisdiction of GHMC. We will meet chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on this issue.”
Relief to defaulters
At the meeting, SCB also decided to give relief to defaulters who had not paid bills till January 2016. Regardless of how much arrears a defaulter owes to SCB, a lump-sum amount of `8,500 can be paid by a defaulter on or before July 10 to get pending bills till January 2016 cleared.