LAHORE, Jan 4: The Water and Sanitation Agency of Lahore Development Authority survey teams have so far detected 42,000 unauthorized water supply connections during their door-to-door survey of the provincial metropolis started in October last year.

Wasa Managing Director Imran Raza Zaidi told Dawn on Friday that the regularization of the unauthorized connections had brought revenue exceeding Rs45 million besides increasing Wasa income from billing by more than half a million rupees per month at the minimum.

He said that all the unauthorized connections detected so far had been registered and were being regularized. The connections detected till Dec 31 last would be regularized under the amnesty scheme at concessional rate.

Prescribed connection charges and penalty would be recovered to regularize connections detected from Jan i onwards.

The Wasa constituted 171 teams for the door-to-door survey of the city for unearthing unauthorized connections in October last. An amnesty scheme was also announced to regularize domestic and commercial water supply connections at concessional rates till Nov 31 last. As many as 25,000 unauthorized water supply connections were detected and regularized by the end of November last.

The amnesty scheme was extended till Dec 31 last on the orders of District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood later on. About 17,000 unauthorized connections were detected till the end of last date of the amnesty scheme. The survey for the detection of unauthorized connections would continue till Jan 31 but prescribed charges and penalty would be recovered to regularize connections detected after Jan 1, he said.