Delhi Jal Board to geo-tag properties, assign unique IDs to streamline billing

New Delhi: The Delhi Jal Board is set to overhaul its billing operations by geo-tagging consumer properties and assigning a unique Customer Premise Identification number to each, officials said on Thursday.

According to officials, the utility currently has around 29 lakh registered consumers. However, only 40 per cent of them receive proper water bills.

"The existing scale of operations, legacy processes, manual interventions and fragmented field operations, have resulted in challenges related to billing accuracy, consumer data quality, service transparency and revenue efficiency," a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) official said.

To address these issues, the DJB plans to hire an industry expert to manage revenue support services. This includes bill distribution, spot billing facility, call centre monitoring and grievance redressal. While the DJB currently maintains consumer addresses based on installed meters, frequent complaints persist regarding the lack of timely and accurate billing.

According to the DJB officials, the board is looking for a company to manage its entire billing operation. The plan includes geo-tag each consumer premise using latitude and longitude coordinates to generate and map Customer Premise Identification (CPID) numbers in addition to existing KNO number.

By tightening its billing systems, the DJB aims to ensure location accuracy and eliminate duplicate or incorrect premises from its record.

"To transition towards a technology-driven, citizen-centric and revenue-assured operational model, DJB proposes to onboard a professional consortium for execution of end-to-end field and revenue support services, supported by modern digital tools," the officials said.

Currently, the DJB reports nearly 50 per cent non-revenue water (NRW). This means more than half of the water supplied does not generate revenue-either due to leakages, theft or unbilled usage. Officials believe that formalising water usage through the registration process could significantly help in reducing these losses.

The move is aimed at expanding the reach of the water and sewer network across the national capital while addressing revenue leakage caused by unregistered and illegal connections.

The DJB will also organise an interaction between industry experts to further refine this proposal.