The Hindu : New Delhi News : Jal Board sets deadline for hi-tech meters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Jal Board sets deadline for hi-tech meters

By Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI, MARCH 22. Alarmed over its growing losses and shrinking collections, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has decided to talk tough with its consumers. It has not only short-listed nine companies to sell new electronic water meters but also set September 30 as the deadline for all water consumers to get their meters installed and checked, failing which they would be heavily penalised.

The DJB hopes that the new meters along with an enhanced tariff would help overcome the huge operating losses. Ironically, of the over 15-lakh water connections, only 5 lakh-odd are metered, while a whopping 10-lakh consumers are without meters, causing massive financial losses to the company.

In fact, it is DJB field staff and authorised plumbers who are mainly responsible for the huge losses to the Government water utility. In was noticed that in most cases meters were not installed, while a majority of those installed were rendered non-functional by the field staff in order to minimise consumers' bills. On an average, only 10 per cent of water consumers receive their water bills. Significantly, in Delhi there are around 14-lakh domestic, 1-lakh commercial and 15,000 industrial connections. And according to an estimate, there are another 20,000 illegal connections in the Capital.

According to senior DJB officials, the average monthly bill of a water consumer was between Rs.30 and Rs.70 for every three months that leads to a yearly collection of around Rs.350 crores from water charges. But the cost incurred in a year was around Rs.1,400 crores that includes Rs.550 crores for operation and maintenance. So, DJB suffers an annual loss of around Rs.1,000 crores. But with installation of additional meters and revised tariffs, the yearly collection is likely to shoot up to Rs.3,000 crores, enabling DJB to recover from its losses soon.

For the sale of new electronic water meters, which are already available in the market, DJB has authorised nine companies -- two Chinese and Brazilian firms each, a German company and four Indian firms. These meters are made of bronze and pass the specifications set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Consumers can either get meters installed by them or by a DJB authorised plumber. To install the hi-tech meters, the DJB is also be giving special training to its authorised plumbers.

After the deadline, any consumer having a faulty meter or no meter would not only be fined Rs.10,000, but would also have to pay double the amount of his dues.

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