WATER; INESTIMABLY PRECIOUS AS LIFE
Jal Hi Jeevan Hai - Life is where water is. It is that one resource which is most important to humanity and yet scarce. Though Gujarat as a whole is considered as a state deprived of natural sources of water, South Gujarat is actually blessed to have it in abundance. This is also the reason why industries have flourished in South Gujarat and it is considered as the backbone of industrial growth in the state. Keeping aside the resources used for irrigation, 70% of additional water resource in South Gujarat is utilized by industrial units and the rest is used for domestic purpose. However, the number of domestic consumers are higher than industrial consumers. This scenario not just demands proper accountability of usage of water, but water being the basic necessity the process of water supply is to be maintained lean, so that the rates at which the water consumers pay back remains affordable.
In this century wars will not be fought over oil, as in the past, but over water. The situation is becoming desperate. The world's water is strained by population growth. There is no more fresh water on earth than two thousand years ago when the population was three percent of its current size. Even without the inevitable droughts, like the current one, it will get worse as demand and pollution increase. Some countries will simply run out of water, sparking a global refugee crisis. Tens of millions of people will flood across international borders. It means the collapse of fisheries, environmental destruction, conflict, lower living standards. As people who deal with the ocean you must see the irony. We are facing a shortage on a planet whose surface is covered two-thirds with water.
There are approximately 17000 water consumers who consume water on metered connection in notified areas across South and Central Gujarat. Not all these consumers can afford to install smart water flow meters for water billing. The task from monthly meter reading collection for water billing to printing and distribution of bills to the recovery of payment was manual. Month by month, there were queues at the banks and offices to make payments before due date to avoid paying interest and penalties. As the number of consumers kept growing, issues related to billing grew and it became difficult to manage monthly billing cycle. It was high time this situation was addressed.
Symbiosis Systems provided the solution by developing a cloud portal and web application for water billing, recovery and accounting which can be used by all notified areas. Consumers now not only receive bill on their registered email and notification on their registered mobile number, they pay the bill online. Consumers can access all their records related to water consumption online. Moreover, Symbiosis also developed a mobile app for collecting meter readings. It just doesn’t help in accurate and transparent meter reading collection, it also sends notification to the consumer’s mobile number, if there are meter related issues. Engineers in charge can monitor day to day meter reading process through the mobile app. It sets accountability of all the stakeholders right. This reduced reading collection related disagreements with consumers by upto 75%. While, in few notified areas, annual turnover of the department shot up by 45%.
This web application is integrated with the drainage department to generated drainage billing for the industrial units on the basis of water consumption. The web application is integrated with GIDC for the purpose of issuance of no dues certificate to the allottees of GIDC. It provides data to the common effluent treatment plant operators at various locations as a source data of their billing systems. The power of the data analytics of the system is so massive that it provided reports to Government of Gujarat on the effect of COVID on industries on the basis of water consumption patterns of that time.
