Hyderabad: Aadhaar must for free 20,000 litre water scheme

Hyderabad: Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MAUD) Minister KT Rama Rao on Monday said that the State government was giving 20,000 liters of free drinking water to all the residents of GHMC. He urged the tap owners to link their Aadhar cards with their connection numbers. He made these remarks while replying to questions raised by some MLCs of the state during question hour in State Legislative Council.

He said so far 2.29 lakh people were enrolled in the scheme covering about seven lakh families. The same is expected to touch covering 8.5 lakh families by the end of March 31. However, the last date would be extended till the end of April, he added. The scheme would cover 95 per cent of the individual households in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area. Further, those in the apartments and gated communities would be billed only for the water consumed over and above 20,000 litres that are provided free to everyone.

Since there needs accountability to the expenditure incurred, he said 24 agencies have been empanelled to fix water meters. And, 500 teams were formed to go door to door create awareness among people on enrollment for the free water scheme linking their Aadhar numbers and to fix the water meters. A 30 operators call centre is working to reach out to the consumer to guide them on how to link their enrollment with the Aadhar number.

Answering a specific question, he said that the issue of relaxation from submitting occupancy certificate to avail free drinking water supply scheme by those households with 100 square yards located in the notified slums in the GHMC area could be considered.

Keep in view to meet the water demands of the popular of Hyderabad till 2025, he said the State government is implementing a water pipeline of 160 km length around the ORR, integrating the Krishna and the Godavari river water pipelines to it. Thus, there would not be any difference between accessing Krishna, Godavari or Manjira water. Out of the total length of pipeline 38-km has already been completed, he added.

On extending a similar scheme in other cities in the State, the Minister said that first, the scheme has to be implemented efficiently in the GHMC area as there is a separate water board. Taking to other cities in future depends on a decision by the cabinet and the approval of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao, he said.

KTR said as water usage is going up, he said the State government will be taking up a campaign in a big way adopting, 'reduce, reuse and recycle (RRR). It is going to insist on a water harvesting pit in every household to conserve water.

He said that the state capital used to witness fights for drinking water in the past and added that the chief minister of the state KCR had taken steps to prevent drinking water problems till the year 2050, while noting that they were constructing Kesavapur reservoir by spending Rs 4,700 crore as part of their plans.

He said that they were also supplying Krishna water to the city from Sunkesula reservoir by spending Rs 14,500 crore. He said that they would have to spend Rs 500 crore for the implementation of free drinking water supply scheme in the GHMC limits. He said that they would extend the deadline to fix up water meters to all the taps in the corporation limits till the end of April next month.

He also said that they were providing the free drinking water in all the slum areas of the GHMC. He said that the ground water levels had gone up a lot due to the decisions of the state government. He urged the residents of the city and the state to set up individual soak pits in their limits.