Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Jun 01, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Jun 01, 2002 |
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Industry & Economy
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Water Management AP Minister defends water tariff hike Our Bureau
HYDERABAD, May 31 THE Minister for Commercial Taxes, Mr K. Vijayarama Rao, on Friday justified the hike in water supply tariff, sewerage cess and connection charges in the twin cities with effect from June 1 on the ground that it was coming into effect after a gap of five years. He told media people here that the cost of water supply had gone up by way of higher charges for power, staff, chemicals, pipes, fuel and debt servicing. As the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board was dependent on the revenues raised from water and sewerage facilities, it wanted to meet the costs partly through tariff hike and partly through improvements in operating efficiencies. The Minister said that two-thirds of the water users fell under the category of those paying minimum charges and for them the tariff rise was from Rs 74 to Rs 122 including sewerage charges. Water supply had gone up from 145 MGD to 162 MGD and it was taken up at a cost of Rs 150 crore. Of this amount, the State Government had contributed Rs 30 crore and the remaining amount was raised as loan from HUDCO. In the last one-year, 116 slums in the city had been provided individual water connections at subsidised rates. Mr Vijayarama Rao said the quality of water had improved and as a consequence, the number of gastro-enteritis cases had come down. The State Government was providing Rs 10 crore annually towards summer action plan. As many as 95 per cent of borewells were kept in running order in the twin cities. He said that due to leakage, 36 per cent of water was going waste and this was more than double the international average loss of 5 to 15 per cent. The Government had decided to bring the Krishna river water to the twin cities for drinking purposes at a cost of Rs 875 crore in two years.
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