Telangana govt. waives off 13 months water bill for consumers

The Telangana government decided to waive off 13 months water bill to the domestic consumers. Accordingly, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) issued a statement on Thursday.

On the orders of the government, the water board waived off the bills for all the domestic consumers in the GHMC limits, including multi-storeyed buildings and bulk consumers, for the period of 13 months from December, 2020 up to December 2021. The waiver of water bills is only applicable to the consumers who consumed 20,000 litres of per month. And those utilized the excess water have to pay the bills.

With the government's decision, the water board will have to bear a burden of Rs 400 crore.

Apart from it, no interest or penalty will be levied on the arrears pending for 13 months period before December, 2020 and may be billed separately from the future bills, the statement said. Also, the water cess already paid by the consumers during the period of waiver may be adjusted in the future bills, the statement added.

In December 2020, the government launched a scheme to provide free drinking water to every household across the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits. There were a total of 9,84,023 beneficiaries of which 50 per cent of them completed the Aadhaar linking process.