The Noida Authority will finally start the installation of smart water meters in Noida in the coming weeks, pending for over four years. On Monday, the Authority finalised a private agency which will install the meters and operate its infrastructure. A total of 5,000 meters are slated to be installed in the first phase, under a pilot project that aims at ending water wastage and bringing more transparency in billings.
Deputy general manager of the Authority’s water and sewerage works department, RP Singh said that Bengaluru-based company BCITS has been finalised to execute the pilot project. “The detailed plan is also being finalised and will soon be shared with the agency. The agency will execute the project and hand it over to the Authority after 10 years.”
Apart from providing the devices, the agency will also set up advanced metering infrastructure. “The entire procedure and billing process will be technology-driven. The metering infrastructure will collect information about usage at regular intervals and convert it as per the billing unit,” said an officer from the water department. “A budget of nearly Rs 9.50 crore has been set aside for the project.”
Users from all categories will be covered under the project, including the residential blocks, group housing societies and industrial, commercial and institutional establishments. The locations and sectors where the pilot project will be implemented will be finalised in a few days. Once the results are out after a period of six months or so, the Authority will take a call on extending the project further.
“We are going to find out how effective the smart metering system is going to be by that time. We will be able to monitor losses during the supply and revenue collected through consumption,” the officer added.
Meanwhile, a team has been constituted by the Authority to study the water billing system across multiple cities in the country. The team will examine the tariff being commanded for per kilolitre of water supply by domestic, commercial and industrial users in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Hyderabad among others. The water charges in Noida will be fixed after the exercise.
All this while the Authority was taking fixed monthly charges from the allottees as per the size of their plots. However, with the new system, allottees will have to pay the charges according to the actual usage.
