Now, slums in Mumbai to have water meters.

Municipal authorities have initiated efforts to install water meters across slums in Mumbai. The move is expected to provide exact water usage details of slumdwellers and bill them accordingly.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has made plans to install about 1.5 lakh non-automatic water meters (AMR) in the slums, having scrapped an earlier plan to put in place automatic water meters.

In some slum areas, the BMC had previously installed regular mechanical meters, but over the years, most of these meters have been tampered with or taken off altogether.

BMC is expected to begin the tender process for installing meters in slums in the next few weeks. The agency will shortly give intimation of providing non-automatic water meters and invite initial response from Indian and foreign companies to bid for the tender.

BMC expects to wrap up the entire process and have the water meters in place within six months. So far, as high as 80 per cent of water connections in slum areas around the city are unauthorised and not charged for. With the move, BMC hopes to know the usage of water in residential as well as commercial areas and slums.

Apparently, the prohibitive cost of the automatic water meters has forced the BMC to initially install non-automated water meters in the slums. And, then based on the response, it may add an electronic sensor to the meters.

With the water meters in place in the slums, Mumbai will be among a handful of cities across the world to have meters in slum areas to tap water usage.