Hyderabad : The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has affected a steep hike in the tariff for all categories of consumers. The Board will be able to fetch Rs 52 crore per month with the hiked charges to be implemented from December 1st.
The domestic category has been classified into seven slabs. For 0-15 Kilo Litres (KL) of water per month in the slum areas, the charges have been increased by Rs 1. However, for other areas, the charges have been increased by Rs 4. Therefore, the consumers will have to pay Rs 10 per in place of Rs 6 in this slab. Similarly, for 16-30 KL, charges has been increased from Rs 8 to Rs 12; for 31-50 KL from Rs 15 to Rs 22; for 51-100 from Rs 20 to Rs Rs 27 and for slab of 101-200 KL per month, the charges have been increased from Rs 25 earlier to Rs 35 now. The consumers falling in domestic category consuming above 200 KL of water per month will have to pay Rs 40 instead of Rs 35. The Board will also collect 35 per cent over water demand towards Sewerage Cess Charges.
The Commercial Category has been broadly classified in four slabs. For 0-15 KL per month slab, the consumers will now be charged Rs 20. Earlier, the charges were only Rs 6. A new slab 16-100 KL has been created by merging three slabs whose charges varied between Rs 8 and Rs 20. However, for the new slab, the consumers will have to pay Rs 35. For 101-200 KL slab, the charges have been doubled to Rs 50.
For the Industrial Category, the charges have been almost tripled. Now, the consumers in this category will have to pay Rs 25 for 0-15 KL; Rs 40 for 16-100 KL; Rs 60 for 101-200 KL and Rs 100 for all water based units.
For housing colonies and gated communities, the charges have been increased by almost four times. For up to agreed quantity, the rate per KL of water will be Rs 10. However, for beyond agreed quantity the consumers will have to pay Rs 40 per KL. For multi-storied residential apartments, the minimum of 9 KL per flat per month will charged Rs 10 per KL and thus, it will work out to Rs 90 per month for water charges per flat and sewerage cess at the rate of 35 per cent will be charged on water charges minimum monthly charges per flat will be Rs.121.50 per month. For housing colonies and gates communities located outside the GHMC area, charges will be Rs 13.50 per KL up to agreed quantity and Rs 54 per KL for beyond agreed quantity. However, no sewerage cess will be levied for this category of consumers. Charges for industries and commercial consumers located outside the GHMC area has been fixed at Rs 90 KL for entire quantity. However, for water based industries, the charges will be Rs 120 per KL. In gram panchayats and municipalities, the rates have been increased from Rs 10 to Rs 40. The tanker supplies for domestic purpose will come for Rs 400 per 5 KL while the price for non-domestic purpose will be Rs 515 per 5 KL.
According to the HMWSSB, the comprehensive revision of water and sewerage tariff was done last time in May 2002 and subsequently, it was rationalized in the year 2004 by introducing differential slab rates for below 200 KL consumption. Due to revision of this tariff the HMWSSB can meet the entire operational and maintenance costs by raising Rs 52 crore per month.
