Hyderabad: In a bid to encourage more people to get drinking water tap connections in urban areas, the state government of Telangana drastically slashed the deposit amount to just “Rs One ”for the below poverty line families and to “Rs 100” for others as against present Rs 6,000 as quoted in a release.

In all municipalities and municipal corporations, the BPL families would now be required to pay just one rupee as deposit for a tap connection and others Rs 100, an official release said.Till now, an amount of Rs 6,000 was being collected towards deposit from all for obtaining a tap connection.

If the connection is to be taken inside the house, the deposit would be Rs 10,500, the release said.People were not coming forward to take tap connections in view of the huge amount to be deposited, the release quoted Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as saying.

The government had decided to supply safe drinking water to every village and towns through Mission Bhagiratha and had made it a right of people to obtain tap water, he said.

"However, people are not coming forward to take connections in urban areas by depositing heavy amounts. There is a need to reduce this and make it a nominal amount, Rao said. (PTI)

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