Hyderabad: Water Board gears up to go after water thieves

Rajendranagar: As the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS) of Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) comes to an end on this Friday, the board is gearing up to take a decision over the course of action against the illegal connections.

According to official sources, despite the opportunity being provided on two accounts in last one year, the voluntarily disclosure scheme got a lukewarm response even this time as significant number of illegal connections were not yet tapped under the scheme.

The HMWS&SB Rajendranagar Division Sub-divided into two sub divisions. Sub Div-I consist of Hyderaguda and Budvel while sub-div-II covers Mailaerdevpalli area. The Board also serves some of the areas of Sulaiman Nagar and Shastripuram.

All the sub divisions managed and operated from the office of the General Manager (Engineering - O & M) Budvel, Rajendranagar. While Hyderguda zone have a mammoth number of 17,000 connections, Mailardevpally Zone carries 10,000 and Budwel Zone carries 5,800 connections altogether.

Surprisingly, in the last two months only 1200 applications were received under VDS scheme while the physical view of the Rajendranagar, that carries hundreds of colonies and thick population, clearly differs the number of connections that are active and performing.

Hyderguda section, which serves densely populated wards such as Sulaiman Nagar and Attapur, surprisingly received only 873 applications for regularization of connections. Similarly, Buidwel section, that supplies water to well predominant populated ward of Rajendranagar received only 77 applications.

As far as the Mailardevpalli section is concerned, it serves two largely populated wards such as Shastripuram and Mailardevpalli that received only 250 applications for regularisation.

"People still complacently vent that their leaders will not allow the officials to go tough against them. id an official.

Last year the board had also launched One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme to allow the consumers pay their arrears without any interest. However, this too failed to attract the defaulters.

Meanwhile, the vigilance teams of HMWS&SB have begun booking the offenders. The officials wrote to police to provide sufficient personnel to go whole hog against carrying illegal connections. "Carrying illegal connections will attract not only criminal cases and penalties but will send the offenders behind the bar for three months, the official informed.