Water Board taps new plans to raise revenue

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) is embarking upon a plan to increase the role of private agencies in issuing and collecting bills from next month in order to streamline its revenue collections. Tender process for the same would be completed by the end November and targets would be given to the selected agencies.

There are about 9.29 lakh drinking water connections in city. Water board must earn Rs 99.81 crore from these connections, but it is getting Rs 87.62 crore per month only, an official said. It has been observed that only 5 lakh consumers were depositing their bills properly and this was resulting in loss of Rs 27 crore to the water board. Revenue loss was halting different other projects being carried out by the water board in and around the city.

Private agencies have been doing this job for a long time, but this time their role will be increased with the increase of dockets, the bill collecting points. In this backdrop the board had decided to streamline the revenue collections in a phased manner. The tenders will be finalised by the end of this month.

Director Revenue B Vijay Kumar Reddy said the tenders will be finalised by November end and private agencies will start working from next month. He said, “Earlier there used to be only 600 members for issuing and collecting bills, but this time the dockets have been increased. About 1,167 dockets will be in function from next month.” Each meter reader under a docket would be given a responsibility of 750 meters for issuing and collecting bills.