Hyderabad Water Board to pay ₹1k bounty for exposing illegal connections | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Illegal water and sewerage connections in Cyberabad region are set to come under a closer watch as the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) has decided to give outsourced meter readers a new role — tracking revenue leakages and identifying unauthorised connections.Under a new tender, private agencies will be required to do more than read meters and issue bills. Their field staff will have to identify unauthorised water connections, document them with photographs and GPS locations, collect consumer details and report them to HMWSSB for further action. It also unbilled sewerage connections and consumers being billed under an incorrect revenue or sewerage category. The agency will have to flag such cases and recommend changes.As per the tender document, HMWSSB will pay the agency Rs 1,000 for every reported illegal water or sewer connection. The same incentive applies to inappropriate sewerage and revenue categories. However, the irregularity must result in the required change in the board’s revenue billing system and the payment must be collected from the consumer before the agency becomes eligible for the reward.“We want to offer agencies incentives for every illegal water or sewer connection, or incorrect sewerage or revenue category they detect. The provision is aimed at incentivising agencies to actively identify revenue leakages and help boost the water board’s collections,” said an official in HMWSSB’s engineering wing.Officials said that the move comes as HMWSSB says its consumer base has crossed 14 lakh connections across its jurisdiction and continues to grow. Under the proposal, meter readers will not merely record consumption. They will have to capture readings through HMWSSB-approved electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) devices, with GPS tagging and time-stamped photographs wherever required.Every doorstep visit to leave a digital trailThe proposed system is designed to make field verification more difficult to bypass. Meter readings will be captured through HMWSSB-approved EPOS machines, with GPS functionality and photographs. Bills have to be generated at the consumer’s premises, with the GPS location recorded by the machine treated as authentic unless proved otherwise.On the other hand, the agency will face financial penalties for delays and errors. Consumers with monthly demand above Rs 1,000, have to be billed by the fifth of every month. Even photographs are subject to scrutiny — uploading an irrelevant or non-compliant photograph would attract penalty.