CGWA Compliance – Borewell Meters

India is the world’s largest extractor of groundwater.

India is home to 17% of the world’s population but only holds 4% of the world’s freshwater resources. It uses an estimated 241 cubic kilometres of groundwater per year – 25% of all groundwater use globally. More than 60% of irrigated agriculture and 85% of drinking water supplies are dependent on groundwater. In addition to open wells, India has over 30 million borewells which extract water from deep aquifers. Overexploitation and insufficient recharge are severely depleting the groundwater resources in the region and various state governments has initiated plans to install water meters for borewells in residences and commercial establishments. CGWA (Central Groundwater Authority) has implemented new guidelines on groundwater extraction, among which is the requirement of a tamper proof electronic meter with telemetry for every borewell. What is not measured, cannot be managed.

CGWA Guidelines

1. It is mandatory to install an ultrasonic or electromagnetic flowmeter.
2. The flowmeter should have a battery power source.
3. The meter shall be manufactured as per ISO 4064:2014 standards and shall have IP68 ingress protection.
4. The meter shall be of accuracy better than ± 2% for the operating flow range (from 10 % to 100 % of maximum flow rate).
5. The meter manufacturer shall submit the latest test/calibration certificate of the meter, from Fluid Control Research Institute (FCRI) / National Physical Laboratory (NPL) or any third-party laboratory accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
6. The parameters to be monitored include timestamp, cumulative forward and reverse flow volume, and meter number.
7. Telemetry data should be directly captured in a secure cloud.
8. Data should be transmitted at least twice a day

Aegir Water Meters are CGWA compliant. These meters communicate over LoRa or Modbus. It can integrate into a Lora/Modbus gateway and uplink via the gateway to a cloud server. Ultrasonic water meters on LoRa wireless protocol is suited for precision measurement in a spread-out space, places where wired networking is not feasible.

Aegir meters are tested by Fluid Control Research Institute (FCRI - a premier standards testing laboratory under Government of India) for accuracy and other parameters. Apart from its high accuracy, tests also reveal that these meters cause extremely low pressure drops (less than 8% of ISO allowed drop). Also, the meters are rated for a high temperature range (up to 80 C) and high-pressure withstanding capability.

Features

• Highly Accurate
• ISO 4064:2014
• Leakage Alerts
• No Pressure Drop
• Does not measure air
• Cloud Based
• Mobile & Web App
• Online analytics available
• Rate of flow indication
• Configurable LCD display
• Remote reading
• Battery-powered option

More detailed technical specifications for CGWA compliance are available from Digital Water Flow Meter with Telemetry for Groundwater extraction monitoring as per CGWA notification Technical specifications.