Hyderabad: The Metropolitan Water Board has been losing Rs 324 crore through theft, but has termed the loss as ‘leakage’.
For many years, the board has been claiming that about 40 per cent out of the 450 million gallons a day (MGD) of water supplied to the city every day is lost due to leakage and lack of storage capacity.
Sources said while the water board officials look the other way, several residents have been drawing water illegally from the main pipelines.
The sources said if the water board officials’ claims were true then all 200 MGD that was said to have leaked every day should have increased the groundwater levels in the city.
It is also clear that officials are allowing the siphoning off of water and are manipulating the revenue.
Admitting that 40 per cent of water supply was unaccounted for, a senior official told this newspaper that the board had hired a consultant to study the issue.
He said the consultant had inspected the city’s 130 reservoirs and had stated that only 2 per cent of water leaked from 54 reservoirs.
The official said the water board could earn Rs 13 crore every month if it spent Rs 8 crore on repairing the leakages.
He said it would take eight months and Rs 1,000 crore to minimise water wastage.
The water board, on an average, collects Rs 107 crore as water charges; it could generate another Rs 13 crore revenue per month if the unaccounted for water wastage is checked.