Only 15% consumers have water meters!

HYDERABAD: Struggling to meet city's growing water demand, the water board has shot off 51,000 notices over the last three months to domestic consumers for having faulty meters or no meters.Incidentally, records reveal that out of the 8.4 lakh domestic consumers, four lakh consumers have meters that exist 'only on paper' while another two lakh consumers have no meters at all.A mere 1.24 lakh have 'working meters' (around 15%) while another 1.4 lakh connections belong to slum-dwellers who do not need to install meters, as per official data.
Considering the water board spends Rs 45 as 'production cost' for every 1,000 litres of water and charges just Rs 10 to supply the same quantity to domestic consumers, non-metering becomes an even costlier affair. Hence, to plug this gap the water board has now started levying a penalty of twice the bill amount for 'unmetered' customers.
Notices have been sent to consumers in Uppal, Alwal, Malkajgiri, Dilshuknagar, Kapra, Kukat pally and Serilingampally ."Due to acute shortage of water and increasing cost of production of water, the need for metering connections is more than ever now. Most of these connections from surrounding municipalities were transferred five years ago to us by the GHMC and they were unmetered at that time.
While in revenue records they were listed as 'under repair' or 'locked', when our people went there they found no meters," said PS Suryanarayana, director (Technical), HMWSSB. Currently the entire supply of water is being drawn from Godavari (170km away) and Krishna (120km away) rivers instead of the Manjeera, Osmansagar, Singur and Himayatsagar, which have dried up.
Domestic consumers, officials rue, also account for maximum wastage. "We are getting water supply only once in four to five days. Even tankers are available only two to three days after booking," said Vijay Sai, resident of AS Rao Nagar. While core areas are getting supply on alternate days, peripheral areas are getting supply once in two to five days.
Residents, however, feel that water board has woken up to this ill-practice a little too late. "The issue of defunct and ghost meters should have been addressed much earlier.It could have saved the city from a massive water crisis.While a person can bathe with one bucket of water, people often tend to use 10 times the required amount," said Vishwananth Reddy , a resident of Vikrampuri Colony.