With a daily water demand averaging about 1000 million litres, and around the same quantity of treated water being produced, Pune Municipal Corporation is not in a position to serve a 24-hr water supply to the whole city. Owing to the topography, some small areas in the heart of the city and some areas of Cantonment have uninterrupted water supply throughout the day. The rest of the city receives intermittent water supply. On an average, net water consumed per capita is 200 lpcd. Though it is more than the recommended norm of 150 lpcd, it has been seen that certain areas do not get adequate supply of water. This can only be attributed to inequitable water supply due to the topography of the city, leaking pipelines, water theft and other sources of non-revenue water.
Before the year 2000, PMC had a process of billing by water meters. However, due to bad quality of meters, meter tampering, and inaccuracies in meter reading, PMC was forced to do away with the system and resort to a flat rate system of billing. In this flat rate system, the water bill is expressed as a certain percentage of the property tax, for all domestic connections though commercial connections are not yet metered.
The objectives are:

• Water audit and leak detection (entire water supply system)
• Complete metering in phased manner
• Zone-wise investment plans for rehabilitation for reduction in leakages and implementation of 24x7 water supply (20 zones)
• Implementation of investment plans for 24x7 zones
• Operation and maintenance for 24x7 zones, for 5 years

• USAID is to provide only the technical know-how for establishing a 24/7 system of water supply, whereas the PMC will follow all processes required to implement the system. This means that all the expenditure for setting up the District Metering Areas will be borne by the USAID, and all necessary activities like tendering, awarding contracts, procuring materials and carrying out works on the field will be carried out by the PMC
  
• A small zone under the Warje Water Treatment plant has been chosen
• The consultants have carried out a detailed study
• Bulk meter integrated with AMR technology has been fitted at the supply point
• Every line in the network has been provided with a fire hydrant and a pressure tap

• Pressures are almost double those in the old system
• Pressures at tail ends have increased from 0.4 kg/sqcm to 1 kg/sqcm
• Metering helps in conducting water audits, leak detection, and in preventing water thefts and wastage, thus reducing NRW
• Better service to the citizens and also help the PMC in tariff rationalization, cost recovery and bill collection improvements
• Indirect benefits to the PMC would be less expenditure on roads, as roads have been the worst affected due to pressurized pipe leaks
• Minimize pipe bursts and thus reduce expenditure on water supply system
• At present, abundant water is being supplied to a number of slum dwellers / urban poor at a nominal rate of Re. 1 per day

The system can be replicated in other part of the city

For further details, contact:

Mr.Praveen Pardeshi
Commissioner
Pune Municipal Corporation