AMC appoints independent officer to check on water thefts, leakages in city

Aurangabad, May 13:

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to detect water thefts and leakages in the existing distribution system has appointed its chief accounts officer (CAO), Santosh Wahule, as an independent officer for the task.

The officer today has inspected the water connection and distribution in Hanuman Tekdi, Pahadsinghpura and surrounding localities.

Every year, the AMC spends around Rs 140 crore on the water supply scheme. However, it is very disappointing that collection of water tax is around or less than Rs 40 crore annually. Hence the AMC has to sustain a loss of around Rs 100 crore, every year, for the past many years.

The strength of illegal water connections has increased tremendously in the city. As a result, lakhs of litres of water is stolen through these connections and the AMC does not get any revenue from these connections.

Meanwhile, the growing scarcity of water in the city for the past one month has become an issue of grave concern. Hence to detect water theft, the AMC decided upon implementing the drive against illegal connections. The civic chief and the administrator A K Pandey appointed an independent officer immediately and told him to focus in the core issue.

Meanwhile, the AMC has sought police security to implement the drive. Hence it is apparent the drive will be implemented as soon as the security is available. The AMC has planned to implemented the drive, on priority, in the areas complaining of facing water scarcity.

The then municipal commissioner Nipun Vinayak had launched the drive against the illegal connections, but it has to be shelved after strong opposition from the political leaders.