Automatic Meter System to Fetch Good Revenues to Water Board
An AMR which was recently installed at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad | Express Photo
To bring transparency in water readings for high consumption bulk
and other water connections of sizes between 25 mm and 500 mm dia,
Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has
started the process of installing ultrasonic water meters called
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR).
Through fixing AMRs, the water
board is expected to increase its revenues to the tune of `103 crore in
the next five years while the total cost of installing 1,318 AMRs is
about`12.58 crore.
With the help of AMRs, the board is expecting
increase in revenues of `1.73 crore per month. The expected increase in
revenue per annum will be around Rs 20.75 crore. Besides, there will be a
saving of 5.25 MGD. Before the implementation of the project, the
metered supplies are 35 MGD and expected quantity after the
implementation of the project would be 40.25 MGD.
Three days ago
the water board has installed one such AMR at Banjara Hills by M/s
Chetas Agency. The rest of 1,317 bulk water supply connections will be
fixed with AMRs by end of this month.
The AMR with GSM technology
does remote meter reading through VPN based GPRS technology and sends
water consumption data directly to HMWS&SB server. The state
government wanted the water board to initiate the unaccounted for water
(UFW) process to account for at least 35 to 40 million gallons per day
(MGD) per month that is supplied to 1,318 bulk consumers.
Water
Board officials told Express that out of the total `12.58 crore project,
the Centre has allotted `4.43 crore, while the board collected `2.57
crore from 435 applicants towards AMR charges through the single window
cell (SWC). The remaining `5.58 crore would be met from the board’s
funds towards forecast revenue generation for the next five years from
AMR metering system (`103 crore).
Last year, HMWS&SB submitted
the proposals for AMR system for 1,318 bulk connections. The SWC
collected Rs 2.57 crore towards AMR charges from 435 applicants. About
883 bulk connections are consuming more than 90 per cent of bulk
requirement ie 32.49 MGD out of 35.90 MGD.
They said that the
entire cost of the AMR project would initially be borne by the bidder
within four months of initial project period.
