The Hindu 31.12.2010
BWSSB moves to plug water leakage
Japan-assisted project to do detailed survey covering 1 lakh households
About 140 km of pipeline will be surveyed, replaced or strengthened
Bangalore: In a bid to identify and plug sources of water leakage, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) will take up an Integrated Leakage Reduction (ILR) project covering 52 sq km of Bangalore south zone.
Announcing this here on Thursday after releasing the water utility's calendar for 2011, BWSSB Minister S. Suresh Kumar said the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA)-assisted project, that covers about one lakh water connections, will begin in 2011.
BWSSB Chairperson P.B. Ramamurthy said the multi-crore project involves survey of household water connections, quality of existing pipelines and sources of leakage in every ward in the zone.
Mr. Narayan, Chief Engineer (Cauvery Project), said that the project involves two stages — designing, management and implementation requiring three years, and operation and maintenance for three years.
About 140 km of pipelines will be surveyed, replaced or strengthened, and service pipelines to one lakh connections will be surveyed to monitor and rectify leakage. Faulty water meters will be replaced, given that each has a life of only about 7 years. The BWSSB reckons that 50,000 water meters require replacement.
The implementing agency will have to track unaccounted water and take appropriate steps to reduce leakage by about 25 per cent. Water flow monitoring meters will be installed in 159 locations by dividing the south zone into 65 district metering areas with each district having an average of about 2,000 water connections.
