Hyderabad, May 12: After dilly-dallying for several months, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) has decided to implement a new system at water filling stations to check water theft.
It consists of a smart card system, where a gate pass will be generated through an Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) terminal and water drawn at each filling point compared to number of trips made.
Since the past few years, there have been many complaints against private water tankers stealing water from the filling stations and selling it in the open market. Water Board officials said the new system would provide a transparent, hassle-free process at filling stations and check pilferage of water.
Presently, there are 45 filing stations in the city, where payments are made by tanker owners through a manual coupon system, with no control over actual payments made and water taken from filling points.
Board officials said each filling station will be issued an EPOS terminal, to be operated by the station in-charge. At each filling station, tanker details such as tanker number, tanker owner name and vehicle details will be recorded. Each tanker will be allotted a smart card with details about the tanker fed into it. The tanker owner has to pay an advance amount against the vehicle number. These payments will be automatically updated to the smart card. For each trip, the smart card swiped in the EPOS terminal will deduct the trip amount from the pre-paid amount.
Each free tanker will be allowed to operate as per scheduled free trips at that filling station. The general manager (O&M) concerned will be given the list of scheduled trips and for unscheduled free trips, a smart card will be issued with advance credit. The manager will authenticate a unscheduled trip with his smart card. There are about 509 tankers in the city, out of which 398 are paid tankers and 111 are free tankers.
During water audit, a CAN will be generated for all filling points. The tanker in-charge should enter the opening and closing reading in the EPOS machine. The demand raised against each CAN will have to match collections made from the tankers. The manager concerned will be accountable for ensuring this and station in-charge should enter the meter reading for every shift change. If there is any mismatch in the quantity of consumption beyond the permissible limit, an SMS will be sent to officials concerned. If there is any difference in the meter reading, action will be taken against the filling station in-charge, said a Board official.
–Agencies