HYDERABAD:To meet the increased expenditure of water pumping in the Phase-III of Krishna Drinking Water Supply Project (KDWSP), the cash-strapped Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has proposed to increase the water tariff for commercial and industrial categories soon.
Last month, the Water Board had partly commissioned 45 million gallons of water per day (MGD) out of the total 90 MGD planned, under the KDWSP Phase-III project, to various parts of Greater Hyderabad and its outskirts, by pumping water from Akkampally which is about 100 km from the city.
In this connection, HMWS&SB managing director M Jagadeeshwar and executive director M Satyanarayana held a meeting on Saturday and on Monday with the chief general managers, general managers, deputy general managers and all the officials from O&M divisions to discuss the hike in water bills for commercial and industrial units.
During the meetings, it was decided that the Water Board will prepare a report on the revision of water tariff for commercial and industrial units and will forward the same to the State government, requesting an approval to increase the water tariff, HMWS&SB officials told Express. For pumping the 45 MGD of water, HMWS&SB is going to incur an additional expenditure of Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore per month as electricity charges.
Out of the 8.30 lakh water connections under HMWS&SB limits, 23,000 to 24,000 water connections are in the commercial category, 1,425 to 1,430 are in the industrial category while the remaining 8.06 lakh are domestic connections.
As against the revenue of Rs 90-95 crore per month, the expenditure has now risen to Rs 95-98 crore with the deficit coming to Rs 3-5 crore per month. This includes the electricity cost of Rs 45-50 crore to run the project. Other costs include pending power dues of Rs 11 crore per month, staff salaries of Rs 25 crore, O&M expenditure of Rs 10 crore and others.
Currently, the HMWS&SB is pumping 345 MGD of water to the city and the villages enroute the three major reservoirs — 225 MGD from Krishna River at Akkampally, 75 MGD from Singur and 45 MGD from Manjira. The remaining 25 to 30 MGD is being drawn from Osmansagar and Himayatsagar reservoirs which does not require any pumping. Officials said the financial burden on the Water Board will increase further when the remaining 45 MGD from KDWSP Phase-III would be commissioned in coming weeks.