Hyderabad: Come January 1, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) will begin charging those who don’t avail of the free drinking water scheme.
The HMWSSB has stated that the consumers who register before December 31, will be issued no bills for 20,000 litres per month with effect from December 2020 and those who fail to enroll before December 2021, will be levied water charges as per rates from December 2020.
However, interest or penalties will not be levied and consumers can pay the bills in four instalments.
“In order to help consumers, the board halted billing from December 2020 to August 2021 and extended the enrollment to December 2021.”
“As per the board’s records, out of the 9,84,023 Consumer Account Numbers (CANs), 4,90,186 have enrolled themselves and the remaining are likely to be enrolled by the month. The expected enrollments in December 2021 is 60,000,” said a press release from HMWSB.
According to the scheme, all domestic consumers are eligible for a rebate of up to 20,000 litres per house in their monthly water bills, provided they fulfil the conditionality given by the state government.
Domestic slum consumers can enroll in the scheme by linking their Aadhaar numbers with CAN numbers and they are exempt from having a water meter. Other domestic consumers are required to link their Aadhaar and have working meters.