Amritsar
28 September 2019
DIVYA AZAD
Sensus, a Xylem brand is the associate partner for the Urban Development and Aviation Summit being held in Amritsar today. At the event, the company is showcasing its world-class smart water management solutions. Amit Vaidya, Director – Customer Relations Team, Sensus India, will be speaking at the summit as well.
Sensus sees India as a strategic market and has been investing in it for the last 5 years. Smart Water networks is the current focus for Sensus in India though Xylem, the parent focuses on wider water related challenges.
Punjab has been identified as a key focus state due to the state government being progressive and open to best-in-class solutions from across the world. And access to drinking water being a major issue in the state.
Sensus made its first big breakthrough in India in 2018 where it’s collaborating with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to provide 2,75,000 smart water meters in the first project phase over 3 years. The scale of Pune implementation is large, comparable to anywhere in the world and will ensure accurate data on billing, identify customer side leaks, manage the network and help reduce non-revenue water.
Sensus India sees schemes like AMRUT, as a game changer since it encourages municipal bodies across India to invest in smart distribution networks in order to deliver 24*7 clean water to people. Municipal bodies/water utilities in India are increasingly seeing the larger positive picture of how with the use of smart water meters and cutting-edge technology solutions, they would be able to significantly cut non- revenue water.
Amritsar metropolitan area which has a population of 1,183,549 has witnessed over 100 feet water depletion in the last five years. Besides, several tube wells are unable to pump out adequate water due to the depleting water table. With more water being extracted than the recharge rate, water levels will continue to deplete in the metropolitan area. It has been facing crisis of potable water supply. Irregular supply and low water pressure has become a routine affair in summers when the demand of potable water rises and the Municipal Corporation is unable to provide sufficient water to all the localities. Agriculture and allied activities are the main occupation in the district. As per agriculture census 2010 there are 62184 tube wells in the district. Dependence on groundwater is high across the district. Like other major cities of India, Amritsar is also facing several urban services delivery challenges which need investments to put in place appropriate assets to meet these challenges. Also, there is a growing gap between supply & demand of potable water.
While water supply has improved significantly in recent years the average daily hours of supply are still 11 hours and per capita supply of water is 180 LPCD; there is also scope for further improvement in NRW from current levels of 35%; cost recovery in water supply services which is at 40% and water supply charges collection which is at 60% are all areas for improvement
Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala, the exploitation of water is 148%, 239%, 183% and 217%, respectively. Researchers of Central Ground Water Board, usually project this rate based on the ebb and flow of GW (groundwater) extraction in these four large urban centers of Punjab. Thus the state has to become more efficient in managing water and also conserve it as best as possible.
Water supply system, as existing, is not adequate to serve the entire population and is entirely dependent on ground water source, which is both environmentally detrimental and also faces quality related issues. It has been proposed to gradually upgrade the existing water supply infrastructure to a robust and sustainable 24×7 surface water source based water supply system.
Sensus has the industry’s fastest, most secure and cost-effective solution, including state of the art and proven smart metering technology for water distribution. This technology can be scaled up seamlessly regardless of the physical size of the network or information complexity. A lot of people do not understand that while there are alternative sources for other natural resources, water does not have an alternative. So it becomes even more imperative to conserve and utilize in the most efficient manner.
A recent NITI Aayog report drawing data from 24 of the 29 states in India predicts India’s water crisis is only going to get worse. 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about 2 lakh people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water. Also, 21 cities are likely to run out of groundwater by 2020.
Electro-magnetic based smart water meters calculate water flow accurately at all pressures and communication functionality is in-built helping effective monitoring of leakages. All data including water flow, alarms with date & time stamps are stored in smart meters and then transferred through communication to control center.
Sensus, a Xylem brand, has 80 million+ metering devices installed globally. It has enabled 2000 cities with 38 million smart meters including the largest such project of its kind – Thames Water in UK. Sensus also provides dedicated and secure two-way FlexNet communications network. The company founded in 1870 and present in 150+ countries worldwide, was acquired by Xylem Inc. in August 2016, as part of the strategy to create a full end-to-end solution globally. Sensus started their operations in India in 2014. Xylem, which acquired Sensus in November 2016, has in India, 450+ employees, factory in Vadodara and two global technology centers in Bangalore and Vadodara. This infact makes Sensus the only metering player to have such a presence in India.
