PMC starts using AI for monitoring water tankers in city

The PMC daily provides 1,400 drinking water tankers to citizens in the city, including newly merged villages

In a first, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has developed an application that will make use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor the distribution of water through water tankers across the city. The civic body on a trial basis has installed the system at a tanker point in Padmavati which will give real-time data of entry and exit, water filled and distributed by every tanker in the city said the officials.

Shrinivas Kandul, head of PMC, electric department, said, eight PMC tanker points located in Wadgaonsheri, Ramtekdi, Padmavati, Parvati, Pashan, Erandwane, Wadgaon and Chatuhshringi are used to fill water in these tankers. (HT PHOTO)

The PMC daily provides 1,400 drinking water tankers to citizens in the city, including newly merged villages. These tankers are outsourced from private vendors who provide water free of cost and the civic body pays for the transport. Also, around 300 private tankers buy water from PMC tanker points at ₹666 per tanker and sell it to the citizens.

Shrinivas Kandul, head of PMC, electric department, said, eight PMC tanker points located in Wadgaonsheri, Ramtekdi, Padmavati, Parvati, Pashan, Erandwane, Wadgaon and Chatuhshringi are used to fill water in these tankers. However, there is no real-time monitoring of the amount of water being taken from each tanker point, and the number of times a tanker comes to refill at the tanker point remains unknown.”

Kandul, said, “We have installed CCTV cameras which are AI-based on a trial basis at Padmavati Tanker point. An application has been created which gives real-time monitoring of the amount of water lifted from Tanker Points and the number of times a tanker comes to refill water will be now monitored. This will help us understand the real and artificial scarcity problem in the city and the malpractices by the tanker lobby,” he said.

Nandkishore Jagtap, head of the water supply department, PMC, said, that if the initiative is found to be helpful, we will implement it at all tanker points in the city.

“We already have a GPS in place to monitor the tankers and this AI-based application will further bring transparency to the water demand and supply system. We will have a record of all points and tankers that take water from PMC,” he said.

Vijay Kumbhar, vice-president of state Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said the issue of tanker lobby and their malpractices has been going on for a long.

“Unless the PMC officials at the water supply department and tanker point work honestly, no matter which system the PMC installs people will continue to suffer and the lobby will mint money,” Kumbhar claimed.