Hyderabad, September 03: Officials of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board do not seem to trust the quality of the water they supply. So when some MPS, MLAs and MLCs visited their premises for a meeting recently, they promptly purchased bottled mineral water to serve VIPs.
The meeting convened by Minister for Municipal Administration Anam Ramnarayana Reddy on Saturday last, was attended by elected representatives of Greater Hyderabad to discuss developmental activities in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. Held at the swank new office of the HMWS&SB, the meeting saw them all being served a premium brand of bottled mineral water.
Four Cabinet Ministers, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, M Mukesh Goud, Danam Nagender, Ramnarayana Reddy, six MPs (both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), 17 MLAs and seven MLCs participated.
Besides, 200 senior officials from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), Central Power Distribution Company Limited of Andhra Pradesh (CPDCL), Roads and Buildings, Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), HMWS&SB, QQSUDA and other departments participated. As the venue for the meeting was the spanking new Jalamandali, the Water Board head office, Khairatabad, the guests presumed that the Water Board would provide them normal water or their own packaged mineral water ‘Metro Water’. Instead, the Water Board served hundreds of bottles of mineral water manufactured by private companies, which are way more expensive than Metro Water.
The Board launched its packaged water brand which is produced in its newly established plant on Asif Nagar Filter Bed premises in April this year.
The plant consists of eight filtering and purification stages, including sand filter, activated carbon filter, micro filter, reverse osmosis plant, ultra violet sterilisation systems and ozonisation plant.
The water quality is monitored on an hourly basis by the Quality Control Lab of HMWS&SB, which got an ISO certification recently. The plant is established on a pilot basis and the water cans are being supplied to Government departments and other institutions.
An MP present at the meeting did find the whole thing rather curious. He asked Water Board managing director M T Krishna Babu tongue-in-cheek if the water that was being provided to Hyderabadis was potable. When Krishna Babu replied in the affirmative, the MP asked him why bottled water was being provided at the meeting instead of the Board’s own water.
While the MD squirmed in obvious discomfort, red-faced Board officials remained silent and looked in every direction but that of the MP’s.
-Agencies