By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 17, 2016 : In a pro-active move, the Odisha government has decided to provide water connections to every house in the state capital along with installation of automatic meter reading (AMR) type meters for billing purpose.

Consumers will have pay for the water they use on the basis of units consumed and bills will be raised accordingly as in the case of electricity.

The public health department [PHD], which looks after water supply in the state capital here, will fit water meters in the houses of one lakh consumers in the capital city within a span of three years at an estimated cost of about Rs 87 crore under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Yojana of the union government.

The Urban Development department is of the view that fixing of water meters will be helpful in providing 155 litres of water per head to all and in achieving the target for water tax collection.

At present, the PHD collects Rs 18 crore towards water tax and with the installation of water meters the collection is expected to jump to Rs 25 crore. Installation of water meters will start from the current financial year, officials said here.

The decision to install meters was taken at the state-level technical committee. Water meters will be installed in houses in the capital city in nine phases. Nine PHE subdivisions have been identified for the purpose.

Water meters will be fixed in the first phase in government quarters under the high-level tank subdivision at an estimated cost of Rs 2.93 crore. In the second phase water meters will be installed in unit IV area at an estimated cost of Rs 14.32 crore.

Similarly, Rs 5.35 crore has been earmarked for installing meters in Unit III, Rs 21.48 crore for Old Town, Rs 10.90 crore for Sahid Nagar, Rs 16.35 crore for Unit IX subdivision, Rs 13 lakh for Rent subdivision, Rs 8.21 crore for Chandrasekharpur area, Rs 7.19 crore for Ghatikia amounting to a sum of Rs 86.86 crore.

Water meters will be installed within the consumer’s premises. While consumers with commercial type connections will be charged at Rs 11.26 per unit (1,000 lts), consumers with domestic type connections will be charged at Rs 3.95 per unit, sources said.