The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) have collected about 100 Crore from house owners and building contracts in the last three years for rainwater harvesting pits to improve the ground water levels in the city. The corporation under the Water, Land and Trees Act (WALTA) is collecting Rs 8 for every square yard for recharge pits.
However the corporation did not spend this money in all these years. Numerous RTI pleas regarding this 100 Crore funds are unanswered as officials themselves are not clear about where they are. It is said that the amount may have been diverted or lying unaccounted. Only 5% of these funds were used to dig rainwater harvesting pits in playgrounds, vacant government lands and other such places.
There are also allegations that expenses shown for construction of recharge pits could have been inflated and the whole 100 Crore may have vanished in to the pockets of officials and leaders. On the other side, Hyderabad is gearing up one more summer where borewells no longer work and people have to shell out huge money on water tankers.
