SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: People in Hyderabad will now have to pay more for water, with the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) set to hike charges by 5 per cent every year in a bid to recover revenue losses.
This will be the first tariff hike in nearly 15 years, since rates were last revised and fixed at around Rs 10 per kilolitre. The CURE Bill 2026 allows the state government to raise charges annually instead of through a one-time revision.
The yearly increase will weigh heavily on people’s pockets, coming even as Hyderabad grapples with a water supply shortfall of around 150 million gallons per day (MGD), a gap likely to widen to nearly 230 MGD. Despite the city’s growing population and rising demand, daily water supply has remained unchanged for more than a decade at around 600 MGD, against an estimated demand of 750 MGD.
The provision could affect 10 lakh consumers across Greater Hyderabad, excluding roughly 5 lakh consumers who receive 20 kilolitres of free water every month under the existing scheme. According to a report by The Times of India, while the annual hike is pegged at 5 per cent, the cumulative increase could reach 25 per cent over five years.
Burden on customers
With the water board currently collecting around Rs 110 crore a month in water charges, a 5 per cent annual escalation could add roughly Rs 50 crore to Rs 60 crore a year to the burden on consumers, a figure that would grow further in subsequent years as the increases compound.
“A 5 per cent annual increase would help bridge the large gap between revenue and expenditure of the HMWSSB without imposing the impact of a steep, one-time tariff revision on consumers,” an official told TOI.
The CURE Bill 2026 also proposes to delink sewerage charges from water charges altogether. “Sewerage charges will be fixed without any relation to the water supply service or any charge imposed for water,” the Bill states.
All domestic and non-domestic occupiers covered under CURE will be required to pay a sewerage charge to the water board at a rate to be notified separately by the government.
SOURCE : SIASAT
