The influential people who had, over the years, managed to get public taps installed at government expense for their personal use are being finally made to pay the water charges. The policy of the government to convert public taps installed on private premises into regular private water connections has worked. Over the past one year, over 46,000 public taps had been converted into private connections, making the Irrigation and Public Health Department richer by about Rs 1 crore, received by way of connection charges and security. The maximum number of such conversions (16,500) have taken place in the Hamirpur zone, followed by Dharamsala (13,800), Mandi (8,000) and Shimla (7,000). Instead of disconnecting the taps or shifting these out from private premises, the government has found a practical and acceptable solution. The conversion policy has benefited the new consumers as they have got a private connection without having to pay for laying of pipelines to their premises. These private consumers will now have to pay Rs 14.64 per connection every month, which could bring additional revenue of about Rs 80 lakh annually to the department. It is a huge amount keeping in view the fact that the department