Urban News

The objective of this workshop is to address the growing need of water resource management, water shortage problem and initiatives taken to conserve and optimise the use of water. Safeguarding fresh water ecosystem, addressing water efficiency by harvesting rain water can enhance environmental stability and thus involve people in the process of green initiative, said Janaki Raman of Vision India, seminar organisers.

Simple water harvesting system can ensure year-long water supply. These systems are low in capital cost and once put in place operate on their own without much monitoring or further expenditure. Thus rainwater harvesting offers promise of clean water, more water and greater control over water.

Topics to be discussed at the workshop include — safeguarding fresh water ecosystem, addressing water efficiency by harvesting rain water, enhance environmental stability and thus involve people in the process of green initiative. Engaging and empowering people in an inclusive environment protection initiative and addressing water efficiency, innovative approaches to water projects in India.

The workshop aims at getting together stakeholders, which includes policy makers from Government of India, state of Maharashtra, experts from industries, builders/architects, city planners, municipal corporation, financial institutions, consultants for urban infrastructure, academic institutions to create awareness about the potential of rainwater harvesting as a simple and cost effective measure to conserve, manage and meet water requirement.   Experience sharing and case studies, success stories by experts will be presented. 

Speakers from ministry of water resources, Govt of India, GTZ, TCE, UNDP, Indian National Committee on Hydrology (INCOH), Indo French Center for Ground Water Research, Ground Water Surveys Development Authority (GSDA) Govt of India, Central Ground Water Board, Govt of India, NGRI - National Geophysical Research Institute- Hyderabad, PMC, PCMC, AFARM, JUSCO are expected to attend the seminar.

Officials said the plan is to have the private firms develop complete hardware and software solutions for the utility.

The revamped model will be a totally integrated system and will provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to tap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.

For metering, the project will entail two modules: new water and sewerage connections, and the status of the existing meters in terms of functionality. The entire data would be digitised, a senior official said.

DJB’s Additional CEO Santosh Vaidya told Newsline: “This would make the system more reliable and fast. The bill would be generated in front of the consumer, who can choose to make an on-the-spot payment or through mobile phone, Internet, banks, or cash counters.”

The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.

According to sources, IT majors like Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro have shown interest in the project and submitted their financial bids. The evaluation of bids is on at a war footing in DJB, and the water utility hopes to complete the task by June 30, sources said. 

While the cost of the project has not been decided yet, according to the revenue model proposed by the DJB, the department will pay 30 per cent of the entire cost in the first nine months — also the time given to the contractor to implement the project. Since the contract will be five-year one, the utility will pay rest of the project cost in quarterly installments.

The new system also promises to put a tight check on frequent defaulters. “At present there is no system to detect defaulters. The department faces a lot of cases of cheques bouncing. The new system, however, would not accept cheques from such consumers,” a senior DJB official said.

Under the project, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of Delhi for a proper analysis of revenue and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. “This would put a complete check on water thefts and help detect illegal water connections and further planning,” Director (Revenue) S B Shashank told Newsline.

According to officials, the company that will get the contract would implement the system in the initial 9 months — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up. The company would continue to work on the project for a total of five years.