IWCRCM (Industrial Water Consumption & Revenue Collection Monitoring) – Water Resources Department, Government of Odisha

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Case Study

Introduction:

The Department of Water Resources has taken the proactive step of implementing  the Industrial Water Consumption and Revenue Collection Monitoring(IWCRCM) project which makes the whole system of industrial water consumption, billing, and collection of water fees more clear, user friendly, error proof, and tamper proof. This effort pushed industry players to provide higher quality service and a litigation-free procedure, hence creating a favorable atmosphere for industrial growth in the state of Odisha. IWCRCM is a user-friendly web-based system that is part of the “Ease of Doing Business” initiative.

Problems:

The main problem faced by the department was failure to get demand notices in remote locations on time because Post Industries had to transport it to vast distances. At the division offices, a significant amount of labor was lost in the preparation of demand notices. Industries had to set aside labor and time for BD/FDR filing. The possibility of human error in the production of demand notices existed and they were accompanied with usage of large volumes of paper, violating ‘Go green’ initiatives. They usually went missing owing to the manual distribution mechanism. It was extremely difficult to manually verify the authenticity of the treasury challans received.

Solutions:

The IWCRCM (Industrial Water Consumption and Revenue Collection Monitoring) system was developed to efficiently collect water taxes from industrial, commercial, and other enterprises. Water dues were calculated correctly and quickly, and stakeholders paid their water bills on schedule. The online payment approach eliminated previous middleman distribution channels, thus lowering inconsistencies in water fee data and increased the transparency. The data security of all parties was maintained by this method. The construction of a database proved to be advantageous in the formulation and execution of policies.

Outcomes:

IWCRCM led to hassle-free, paperless and in time raising of monthly demand. It enabled access to precise and reliable information on water allocation, drawal, and payment status. There was ease of conducting business by bringing transparency to water rate billing and collection. The project included all industrial, commercial, and other organizations that drew water from government sources and performed irrigation work. It resulted in the consolidation of all 34 divisions of the Department of Water Resources into one large water rate network

Challenges:

The project’s key obstacles involved the collecting and compilation of varied data. Another problem was raising awareness of regulations and government notifications among stakeholders. With limited labor, processing the project on time was difficult, as was delivering demand notes to outlying areas on time. Another major challenge was that manually created Treasury challans were difficult to authenticate.

Innovation:

The project’s novel features include a workflow-based system with the ability to raise demand from stakeholders and access to vital information on industry allocation, drawal, billing, penalty, and interest status. E -Payment of treasury challans with mapping of various treasury heads was another feature which was innovative. It was easy to keep track of everything with the help of an online dashboard. Another feature was the provision of a feedback mechanism for resolving issues.

Opportunity:

The project had the implication of integrating  IOT/OCR based flow meter reading for all users. It has benefits in terms of adding predictive time series analysis of past data and monitoring the system in order to lower the system’s water footprint. In the future, the project has the potential to execute monitoring of water usage per unit of product, rainwater harvesting systems, and roof top rain water harvesting . Water recycling and reuse, as well as data gathering on effluent discharge is also implicated.

Summary:

The Department of Water Resources has introduced the IWCRCM (Industrial Water Consumption & Revenue Collection Monitoring) system for water tax collection from industrial, commercial, and other organizations to make doing business easier and to comply with the Government of Odisha’s 5T requirement. This method allows stakeholders to raise demand in a hassle-free, paperless, accurate, and transparent manner by offering timely online service at their doorsteps. It led to quicker access to crucial information on industry allocation, drawal, and billing status. A dashboard is available for monitoring and the entire procedure of raising requests and e-payment has been more transparent along with being less time consuming. It is becoming increasingly beneficial to the stake-holders by providing services at their door steps.The advantages have become more visible over time, assisting in bringing additional stakeholders into the water rate revenue network.

For more information, please contact:
Mr Deepak Kumar Mohanty, Chief Engineer, Water Services at cews-eicwr.od@nic.in

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