To plug water revenue leaks, Delhi dials TCS (Indian Express 27 October 2010)

Jal Board clears Rs 53-cr IT project for five years, digitised bills from next year
The Delhi Jal Board on Tuesday got the approval to go ahead with a Rs 53-crore Information Technology project outsourcing revenue management to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). If all goes according to plan, water meters across the city would get a hi-tech makeover by next year, with manual billing being replaced by digitised metering, billing and bill collection.
TCS won the tender which had other high-profile bidders like Infosys and Wipro. Senior officials said 50 per cent of the entire cost of the project would be paid to TCS in the first nine months. “The total cost of Rs 53 crore includes Rs 21 crore capital cost and Rs 32 crore cost for operations and management,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said.
Jal Board officials say outsourcing revenue management would help them check revenue losses, which are huge due to the difficulties in monitoring 90 zonal offices across the city. Now, on behalf of the water utility, TCS would develop a comprehensive hardware and software solution.
The revamped model proposes to be an integrated system that would provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to cap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.
For metering, the project will have separate modules for water and sewerage connections and meter status. While the entire data would be digitised, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of India to properly analyse revenue flow and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.
According to officials, TCS would implement the system — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up — in nine months. The company will continue to work on the project for five years.
Apart from other approvals, at its 100th Board meeting, the DJB also got a green signal for deployment of an Intelligent Transport System for water tankers in the city. Worked out at the cost of Rs 62 crore, the project proposes to monitor system operations, ensure compliance to schedules and service quality, minimise revenue leakages, optimise costs, enhance safety and generate valuable traffic information for fine-tuning mobility plans for tankers.