The civic body is considering a proposal to install smart water meters in those wards that are covered under the Area Based Development (ABD) programme of the Smart Cities project.
According to sources, the water meters that come with sensor will spare the Corporation of the need to deploy people to manually read the consumption for every assessment in the 14 wards - easily, around 5,000 connections, and then calculate the charges. Sensors in the water supply grid will automatically read the quantity supplied and send the information to a server that will calculate the water charges and then alert both the officer concerned as well as the resident.
The sources say this will also eliminate corruption in the field level, if any, as residents cannot collude with the field staff to reduce water charges.
The civic body is preparing the plan to install the water meters covering commercial and industrial connections first and then go for domestic establishments in the 14 wards that are in ABD project.
This will benefit residents and people who do business in R.S. Puram, Ramanathapuram, Selvapuram, Chokkampudur, Kottaimedu and other areas near Big Tank and Valangulam.
The Corporation initially planned to have sensor-based water meters for 60 wards (old city area) under the 24x7 drinking water supply scheme but decided to have it first under the Smart Cities scheme for the 14 wards. The sources say that as when the detailed project report for the 24x7 water supply scheme is ready, the Corporation will exclude the 14 wards.
As for the cost of the project, they add that it can be arrived only after the State Government approves the scheme and estimate is prepared.