Santosh Nagar: HMWSSB mounts campaign against illegal connections

Santosh Nagar: The HMWSSB (Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board) has come up with a Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS) to provide yet another opportunity to the illegal connection holders.

HMWSSB on Friday organised an awareness programmes in a unique way that during the Jumma prayers it has fixed hoardings near mosques and after prayers, they are explaining to the Musallies (one who prays) to regularise their tap connections, if any, and make efforts to cut down on water wastage.

According to an HMWSSB official, they are impressing upon the public not to let water go waste, and also that possessing illegal tap connection is a criminal offence. The officials are asking to make use of the VDS by February 21, after which they would start levying hefty penalties for any illegal connections. They are also urging the public to tip them off on any illegal tap connections to the HMWSSB officials in their respective areas.

The Water Board had announced VDS-2019 in November as the last opportunity for the defaulters to get their illegal connections regularised once and for all. The scheme ends on February 21, 2020.

It may be mentioned here that Water Board MD M Dana Kishore informed that applications were received for regularising about 2,300 illegal water connection holders till date. He urged the city residents to take advantage of the scheme to avoid the risk of large-scale penalties and criminal cases, as VDS-2019 would end on February 21.

A total of 73,841 connections were surveyed in the six divisions in the door-to-door survey so far, of which 3,727 were commercial connections, 1,288 MSB connections and 1,410 were illegal connections. This resulted in one-time connection fee of around Rs 9.3 crores.