Hyderabad: The State government on Monday extended the deadline for installing water meters through impaneled agencies to avail the 20,000 litres free water scheme in the city from March 31 to April end.

Announcing this in the State Legislative Council here, Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao said the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) was supplying water efficiently and meeting the requirements of the people. He said 95 percent of connections excluding commercial and other connections in GHMC limits would benefit under the scheme which is linked to Aadhaar.

The Minister was responding to a question by MLCs MS Prabhakar Rao, Farooq Hussain, and others in the Council. He said customers can install meters from 24 impanelled agencies. The Board has constituted 500 teams that are visiting every house to advise people to get meters from the empanelled agencies to avail free water scheme.

About seven lakh families through 2.29 lakh connections are beneficiaries under the scheme as of date, Rama Rao said, adding that another three lakh families would be eligible for the scheme by this month-end.

“We linked it to Aadhaar to ensure that every paisa utilized under the scheme is accountable since the government is spending an additional Rs 500 crore for the scheme,” he explained.
The customer care personnel were explaining to the customers how to avail the scheme by linking it to Aadhaar and forwarding SMSes to them.

The people especially women in united Andhra Pradesh used to stage protests with pots at the office of HMWS&SB office in Khairatabad every summer demanding a supply of drinking water.
But the situation has now changed after the TRS government came to power water is being supplied to all households without any interruption, Rama Rao said.

People in Chennai and Latur got water supplied by railway tankers. With foresight, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has taken up the construction of a reservoir at Keshavapuram at a cost of over Rs 4,700 crore, and works have already commenced.

A separate line from Krishna River was also laid at a cost of Rs 1,450 crore. The two projects were aimed at meeting the water requirements till 2050 even if the city is expanded geographically.

A ring main project was also started abutting the Outer Ring Road (ORR) to interlink Godavari and Krishna waters. Of the 160 km, works pertaining to over 35 km were also started while the remaining work would be completed in a phased manner.

To a request whether the free drinking water scheme will be extended to other areas in the State, Rama Rao replied that the government would examine it before the Chief Minister takes a final decision on it.