HMWSSB for automatic meters at all firms

Khairatabad: Around 50 per cent of commercial water connection meters are not in working condition in the city, according to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB).

With a view to increasing the revenue of the Water Board and ensure accountability for the use of the water by the commercial establishments in city, HMWSSB is planning to fix Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) units at over 40,000 commercial consumers water connections in city.

Speaking The Hans India, Vijay Kumar Reddy, Director and Revenue Officer, HMWSSB, said: "Out of the 40,000 commercial consumers water connections, around 50 per cent meters are not in working conditions.

Some shop's water connection meters are under repair or meters locked and remaining are the old meters. We will fix the AMR meters to all the commercial consumer water connections in a phased manner and expect a 10 to 15 percent of more revenue."

At present, many commercial consumers have mechanical meters and around 50 per cent of meters are not in working conditions and they are all paying the average water bill, as they used to pay earlier. This way, the Water Board was unable to get the exact consumption of water by the commercial consumers in city.

The Water Board has fixed the AMR meters to around 4,000 commercial consumers in some of the areas on pilot basis and got good revenue as per the usage of the water by them. Now they want to fix AMR meters to all the commercial consumer connections to increase the revenue as per the usage.

HMWSSB Managing Director Dana Kishore instructed officials to fix the AMR meters to all the commercial consumer connections at the expenses of the Board and later, it will be taken back from the consumers in installments.

In 40,000 commercial consumer connections, around 80 per cent of the connections are half inch connections. In city, there are around 2,000 industrial water connections and around 86 per cent of industries have AMR meters. The remaining establishments will have new metres in a phased manner, said the Water Board official.