New Delhi
The Delhi authorities has prolonged until August 15 the scheme to regularise unlawful water connections, after receiving solely round 2,500 purposes till March 31, senior officers conscious of the matter mentioned.
A senior authorities official, requesting to not be named, mentioned the scheme has acquired very poor response from public and folks have been largely reluctant to return ahead regardless of decreasing the penalty to a token quantity of ₹1,000.
“Fewer than 2,500 folks have utilized below the scheme for regularisation of their connections. It’s negligible quantity. We are going to examine numerous components that are resulting in such poor response. There could also be points pertaining to possession of the home or previous payments. We are going to attempt to deliver extra folks within the fold of authorized connections,” the official mentioned.
The Unauthorized Connection Regularization Scheme was introduced by the federal government on October 14, 2025.
In line with the Delhi Financial Survey (2025-26), the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has round 2.9 million connections, comprising 2.81 million energetic home connections and 840,000 industrial connections. Its sale of water was 403.03 million gallons per day (mgd), indicating an estimated 50-52% non-revenue water element resulting from leakages and thefts via unlawful connections.
Beneath the regularisation scheme, the token penalty is simply ₹1,000, decreased from a penalty of ₹25,000, whereas for non-domestic connections, the cost was decreased from ₹61,000 to ₹5,000. The scheme was launched alongside the late cost surcharge (LPSC) waiver scheme.
Beforehand, the Delhi authorities expressed concern in regards to the low variety of unauthorised connections in purview, with fewer than 3 million water connections, compared to over 7.3 million electrical energy connections.
A second official mentioned that a number of the industrial institutions, outlets might depend on canned water and one home might have a number of energy connections. “Even when we low cost these components, the precise variety of water connections must be a lot greater. Tens of millions of connections are nonetheless lacking,” the official mentioned.
As per the financial survey, the Delhi Jal Board has streamlined its system for acquiring water meters for metering of unmetered provide of water. “The prevailing system of provide of water meter together with sanction of water connection has been amended and now customers should purchase water meters of authorised specs from the open market. The customers having Delhi Jal Board’s faulty meters have been allowed to get the faulty meter changed with personal water meter and have been given possibility both to get the refund of meter safety or get the identical adjusted in direction of water costs in future,” the report reads.