The Hindu 31.05.2013
Four lakh new meters installed in last six years, says Delhi Jal Board
Order placed for four lakh more: DJB
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has refuted the claims of NGO
Citizen’s Front for Water Democracy that the water utility is procuring
more meters than it needs to. In a statement issued here, the Board
dismissed these allegations.
“The figures given by
the NGO are misleading, baseless and mischievous. In fact, the DJB has
procured and installed four lakh domestic water meters over the last six
years [2005-2011]. At present the Jal Board has about 19.81 lakh
registered consumers, of which 14.2 lakh are metered. In order to
encourage metering of water consumption, the Board allows its consumers
to procure and install their own ISI-marked meters. However, around 40
per cent of the meters installed by the consumers are found to be either
deficient or non-functional. Therefore, the Board decided to procure
and install, at its own cost, good quality meters with built in
operation and maintenance of five years for metering of water
consumption. This is expected to improve water auditing and encourage
responsible and equitable consumption of water,” the DJB statement read.
It
went on to add that the Board has recently placed an order in April
2013 for procurement of four lakh more meters with built-in operation
and maintenance of seven years. “This order is now under implementation.
It needs to be mentioned in this context that the Jal Board also
expects the consumer base to increase rapidly because new, planned and
unplanned areas have been connected with piped water supply network.
This requires the Board to be equipped with adequate number of meters in
order to ensure that newly sanctioned water connections are metered
right from inception.”
For the Chandrawal project,
which envisages the rehabilitation of not only the oldest water
treatment plant but also its command area, the detailed project report
is under preparation and no requirement for meters has been finalised
yet. “It should also be mentioned that the replacement of meters is a
continuous process since all meters have a certain life cycle. The
Board’s endeavour is to continuously expand its connection base and
ensure that all connections are provided with accurate meters.”
The
NGO had claimed that the DJB was procuring at least 14,29,400 meters,
whereas there were only 3,51,000 unmetered connections.
