Defaulters water connection to be cut off

HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) is poised to disconnect water supply to a large number of defaulters in the twin cities.The Board has empowered over 80 Green Brigade contractors with staff and police in all its 14 operation and maintenance divisions. The contractors enlisted with HMWS&SB have already disconnected water suypply to about 1,000 defaulters.The board’s executive director K Ashok Reddy told Express that out of the 7,77,774 water consumers, the board has identified 1,55,491 as regular defaulters including 75,000 in the twin cities. Each defaulter owes the Water Board either more than Rs 5,000 or has not the paid bills for the past three months.“There are several cases where consumers have not paid the bills for 10 years or more which add up to Rs 176.22 crore,” he said.Ashok Reddy said that Green Brigade teams have been provided uniforms as well as identity cards. Each Green Brigade contractor has been asked to disconnect at least 25 connections per day. The board has set a target of 10,000 disconnections by this month end.He said necessary assistance will be extended by the Water Board to achieve the target. The next review will be held on June 30.“The board is shelling out nearly Rs 20 crore per month to APCPDCL towards power charges for pumping water from sources like Krishna, Singur, Manjeera to supplying drinking water to Greater Hyderabad,’’ he said.