Telangana Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir today alleged that the TRS government's
recently launched free water scheme, which "lacked clarity", was aimed solely at misleading the people.
He said that the new scheme, which was introduced to provide free water to those households of the GHMC area that consumed less than 20,000 litres of water per month, was being implemented with many riders, and would only create more confusion instead of solving the city's water shortage issues.
In this regard, he demanded that the government immediately simplify the process of the implementation of the scheme.
The Congress leader also claimed that the TRS government was not doing anything to alleviate the problems of water scarcity in the city, and was only claiming credit for an already-established system.
"The supply of drinking water in the slum areas of Hyderabad, whether through public or community taps, has always been free. Therefore, contrary to the claims of the TRS regime, most slum users stand to gain nothing from this new scheme," he said.
Questioning the government's instructions that beneficiaries install water metres in order to avail themselves of the scheme's benefits, Shabbir Ali claimed that that was unnecessary since all the houses already had metered water connections.
"This scheme is an eyewash. It will not benefit any poor households substantially. In fact, individual households will be forced to bear the costs of installing new metres to replace already functioning metres for no good reason because of its implementation," he said.
The Congress leader also came down heavily on the government for launching a scheme that had "no clarity" on the provision of benefits to consumers living in apartment buildings, and said it was "ridiculous" to ask flat owners to install individual meters, or to apply for individual registrations, as they received water through a common connection.
Further, the former minister pointed out that the consumers hoping to benefit from the scheme would have to link their Aadhaar card numbers to the Customer Account Numbers (CANs).
"Yet again, the government is asking the citizens to give up their Aadhaar numbers, which might lead to breaches of their privacy. Even after the High Court recently
objected to the linking of Aadhaar numbers to the property registration applications on the Dharani portal, the government has not learnt its lesson. It is still not taking the issue of data theft seriously," he said.
Shabbir Ali also singled out Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K T Rama Rao for "trying to claim" that the TRS government had resolved the drinking water problems of Hyderabad.
"The current government did not bring even one additional drop of water to the city. It is only banking on the supply systems put in place by the preceding Congress regimes, to portray itself as the party that solved the water crisis. It was the Congress that executed three phases of the Krishna River Water Project and the first phase of the Godavari River Water Project. These projects cumulatively ensured the supply of nearly 26.5 TMC of water to the city. The TRS has not done much to ensure water security," Shabbir Ali claimed.
The former minister also lashed out at KTR for "saying repeatedly in his speeches that he had grown up seeing protests for water in the city".
"It was Congress leader P Janardhan Reddy who would organise the protests KTR is always referring to, to highlight the problems the citizens were facing under the rule of the TDP. Such protests were never held when the Congress was in power as it took concrete steps to resolve the problem of water paucity. KTR, however, has become habituated to making false claims. He must do some homework and learn history before making these baseless politically-motivated statements," he said.
This is the second time in a week that the Congress has attacked the TRS saying that the latter was trying to claim the former's achievements as its own. Just days ago, TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy had
rebuked the TRS government for "constantly claiming the Congress' successes as its own".