As many as 3.74 lakh or nearly 47 per cent of the consumers paid water bills for the month of October, fetching the Water Board a record revenue of Rs 51.14 crore.
The Water Board has 7.95 lakh consumers (connections) in all. The October collection is the highest for any one month in its history.
On the other hand, this would mean that more than 50 per cent of the consumers in the city do not pay their water bills regularly, leading to loss of crores to the Board. Inquiries reveal that only 3 lakh to 3.30 lakh consumers (connections) pay their water bills every month. Over 2 lakh of the total 7.95 lakh domestic and non-domestic consumers have not paid their water bills for over a year now.
There are various issues leading to long-term water dues. A majority of the consumers seem unwilling to pay up timely. What adds to the problem is that the Board has failed to raise bills for its consumers in many areas. Then, there are the illegal connections as well.
To top it all, the Board’s half-hearted disconnection drive seems to have done little to dissuade the regular defaulters.
The water bill arrears of these errant consumers — including domestic, commercial, business establishments, and bulk category and government departments — amount to a staggering `600 crore.
Of this, domestic consumers have to pay over Rs 350 crore, while the remaining is to be paid by commercial establishments, business establishments and bulk-category connections. Moreover, various government departments too owe over Rs150 crore to the Water Board.
Water Board in-charge, director (technical) Sundar Ram Reddy said a multi-pronged strategy is on to realise the bills.