Panaji goes digital to improve sustainable water supply

As water scarcity remains a critical issue in Goa, India, a smart water metering project has secured support from SenRa, which will deploy a public network in efforts to advance Panaji’s water digitisation across their supply.

India’s Panaji Public Works Department (PWD) awarded a smart water metering contract to Cranberry Analytics, a water management company based in India, with an initial phase of replacing 3,094 consumer-grade mechanical water meters with LoRaWAN enabled ultrasonic smart water meters.

And it was in support of this project that SenRa – a PAN-India LoRaWAN public network operator – announced the deployment of their public network across Panaji to enable the streaming of smart water meter data.

Water scarcity and management in the province of Goa has long been an issue with extreme water shortages a recurring theme. A recent case saw the province’s water supply deteriorate significantly earlier this year in the summer.

The issue has reached a point where outdated infrastructure, such as old pipelines, led to 38% water loss across the province. Additionally, earlier in October, the PWD released a statement that action will be taken against residents who misuse domestic water, including disconnection of supply.

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Within this scenario of continued scarcity, such a smart metering project may provide a way forward.

According to Cranberry Analytics, their smart water metering solution provides a sustainable approach to managing water supply and distribution by analysing water consumption data on a daily basis to detect anomalies.

Through the correlation of that data with other data streams, they hope to help cities plan water distribution, mitigate water wastage (NRW) and improve consumer billing.

“Having worked on multiple such projects in the past 10 years, both with mechanical water meters and smart devices, we understand the nuances of this technology spectrum and how critical it is to have a stable and reliable network partner for the success of such projects. Since SenRa is one of the very few network providers in India which has worked on LoRaWAN-related products extensively and has a good presence in the region, we have chosen to partner with them for this project,” said Shishir Thakur, CTO, Cranberry Analytics.

“Assuring a regular and long-term supply of potable water to Indian households requires constant monitoring of service level indicators,” added Kush Mishra, CTO and COO, SenRa. “We are excited to partner with Cranberry Analytics and utilise our expertise in LoRaWAN-based metering systems to solve this problem with reliable LoRaWAN network services.”