HYDERABAD: Acquiring a drinking water connection is now going to become hassle free thanks to certain initiatives taken by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB).
The new water connections that is sanctioned through a Single Window Cell (SWC) of the Water Board that has now been streamlined and domestic (household) connections would be sanctioned in seven working days, are some of the initiatives taken up by Managing Director M T Krishna Babu.
The SW Cell has now been bifurcated into two zones with the merging of surrounding municipalities with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
After merging of the municipalities, the demand for new connections in GHMC has gone up and the previous SWC section was unable to handle the situation with several complaints of irregularities and mismanagement by certain officials creeping up.
The Managing Director was unhappy over the functioning of SW cell, and took these initiatives to provide relief to the consumers seeking new connections.
Getting a water connection earlier was a Herculean task and getting a new connection would take anywhere from one month to six months.
Due to the lack of coordination between SWC and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) wing, consumers who got water connections were not getting monthly bills for months together resulting in the piling up of huge arrears as the SWC failed to pass on the information to the O&M wing for meter billing in turn causing huge losses to the Water Board’s exchequer.
Zone I will have North and South of Musi (Old City) that will include Divisions 1 and 3, while Zone II will include Divisions 2, 4 and 5 consisting of municipalities which were notified as circles and parts of twin cities. Each zone will be monitored at the level of General Manager.
Directions have been issued that those who apply for half-inch new connection, should sanction the application within seven working days, for three-fourths connection, the connection should be accorded in 15 working days.
To whomever the connections are released, the SWC officials should update the information online.
Similarly for Commercial and Industrial connections who form the bulk of consumers, Water Board will make efforts to give connections without any delay as they are major source of revenue to the HMWS&SB. About 80 per cent of revenues is generated from bulk consumers.