Kerala govt ropes in IBM for solutions to water distribution

Technology giant IBM is providing its Big Data solutions to help the Kerala government in monitoring water distribution and preventing loss from leakages.
Kerala Water Authority (KWA) is using IBM's analytics and mobility solutions to analyse, monitor and manage water distribution in the city of Thiruvananthapuram, the tech major said in a statement today.
No financial details of the deal were disclosed.
With the solutions, KWA aims to achieve 100 per cent success in equitable water supply with the ability to monitor and flag irregularities in water usage using sensors and intelligent meters, it said.
Serving a population of more than 33 lakhs, KWA faced huge losses in water distribution with close to 45 per cent of fresh water unaccounted for or wasted due to leakages.

Also, without systems in place to monitor and provide real-time visibility into water consumption, it was difficult to track the performance of water treatment facilities and the effectiveness of the water supply network.

KWA is also facing challenges in revenue collection as the billing system was unable to track water consumption by consumers accurately.
The data monitored by the IBM systems will help KWA in tracking water meters across the city on consumption, thereby reducing billing anomalies and improving revenue collection by more than 10 per cent, IBM said.
"We will now have real time information and will be able to assess and manage our supply effectively. We are happy to have partnered with IBM in our endeavour to make water distribution in the city equitable and fair," KWA MD Ashok Kumar Singh said.

IBM is happy to have partnered with KWA to provide them the power of analytics and mobility, two of the most important technologies of the time, and help them transform the water distribution and management systems in Thiruvananthapuram, in an effort to help make it a Smarter City, IBM India/South Asia Director - Smarter Planet Solutions Prashant Pradhan said.