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BMC to try out imported water meters for city ......Sharad Vyas | TNN
Mumbai: A BMC technical committee, which includes experts from IIT, has approved of imported water meters that are tamper-proof. Six foreign firms, including, Actoris, Sappel, Arad, Aman Engineering, Chetas and Severan Trent, will supply the meters. Some of the firms have even taken a guarantee that their meters will last for 15 years.
Currently, the city has 3.27 lakhs metered connections, but parts of the Indian-made meters are plastic, which makes tampering easy. Worse, only 56% of these meters are in working condition.
About 15,000 new meters will be installed on a pilot basis for a period of six months and each will cost between Rs 5,000 to Rs10,000. “Once their testing period is over, the committee will give its final report on the new meters,” said an official.
Civic officials have been receiving a large number of complaints of tampering with these existing water meter. But, hopefully, the new water meters will solve this problem,said officials.
The BMC supplies about 3,350 million litres of water every day to more than 12 million Mumbaikars; but a staggering 650 million litres a day is lost during distribution owing to pilferage and leakages.
The firms will also be responsible for the maintenance of the meters for a period of five years, said officials.
The new meters, BMC hopes, will reduce theft and also help in effective implementation of the new telescopic rate system. According to the new rate card, those who consume water above the stipulated BMC limit will have to pay a higher rate.
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