Those who are habituated to let water drip instead of shutting the faucets properly in their homes will now have to be careful because the water supply department is going to install meter system in all water connections—including commercial connections-- with the help of Asian Development Bank in the state shortly. The latest technology will be procured for this purpose to enable the department staff to collect accurate data about the water consumption with a hand held device. This was confirmed by Additional Secretary C Ravishankar while talking to The Pioneer.
Ravishankar said that it has been noticed that people are wasting tap water due to which the department has to struggle harder in order to cope up with the water demand. He said, “The situation is exacerbated during the summer season so if we manage to install meter in the existing water supply system then we can save water and earn money for the maintenance of the department.” It has also been noticed that many people have constructed their homes in Dehradun but they come here mostly during vacations. Despite their limited period presence here, such home owners have to pay a substantial amount because water supply department charges fix amount from all its consumers. Apart from this, it has also been noted that consumers keep their taps open to irrigate their farm or maintain greenery in and around their homes. By doing this, they have been wasting precious water because they know that they will have to pay only fix amount whether they utilise little or more quantity of water.
To implement this in a fool-proof manner, a delegation of water supply department along with additional secretary is going on an educational tour to Bangalore. There the delegation will study how officials are collecting the water consumption data without knocking at the door of the consumers. They are also able to identify the consumers who have tampered with their meter or the meters which are out of order. In addition to this, the officials can also track their employees to ascertain whether they are on job or not.
Ravishankar said that the implementation of this programme will be funded by the ADB with the cost of the work estimated to be about Rs 25 crore. “After this implementation, we would be able to tackle water woes during the summer season,” he added.
It should be mentioned here that earlier water supply department was planning to impose tariff as per the number of taps available in households. With the implementation of the meter system, the consumer will be benefited because if they use less water then they will have to pay less but currently everybody is paying same charges. Even commercial consumers are paying less even though they are using more water.