BENGALURU: Over 600 million litres of water per day (MLD) supplied by the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) goes unaccounted for every day due to various reasons. A private firm contracted by the BWSSB is now helping the civic agency reduce the water loss.
The BWSSB supplies 1,350 MLD to meet the water requirements of Bengalureans. However, a staggering 48 per cent of this ends up as Unaccounted for Water (UFW) due to unauthorised connections, leakages and water lost during transmission and distribution.
The agency had set itself an ambitious target of bringing water losses down to 16 per cent. For this, Larsen & Turbo was roped in. Of the 800 sq km area in the city, the project was taken up in three divisions Bengaluru South, West and Central — covering 120 sq km.
“L&T began work in Bengaluru West eight months ago and in Bengaluru South two years ago and has brought down the loss to 36 per cent in South,” said S Krishnappa, Chief Engineer (CE), Cauvery Division, BWSSB.
Areas under South division include Jayanagar, J P Nagar, Chamarajpet, Padmanabha Nagar, BTM Layout, Banashankari 2nd and 3rd Stages and Basavanagudi. “Before the contract expires in 2016, we expect the percentage of water loss to come down much further,” he said.
“The most important aspect is that maintenance must be done by the company for a period of three years after expiry of the contract,” said a top official. “Plugging leakage has not yet translated into increase in revenues for BWSSB, but it will happen over a period of time,” he added.
A top BWSSB official said, “A target, say like 20 per cent reduction in water wastage level (and not the goal of 16 per cent) sounds more realistic and achievable.”
Areas covered by L&T in West division include Vijayanagar, R P C Layout, Ramamurthy Nagar, Sadashivanagar and Malleswaram, Krishnappa added. French multinational firm, Suez Environment and India-based SPML Infra Limited are jointly carrying out the work in Bengaluru Central.
BWSSB is simultaneously carrying out replacement of faulty distribution pipelines with financial assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in these three divisions.
Elaborating on the procedure adopted, the Chief Engineer said that each area has been divided into 85 district metering areas (DMAs). Every DMA comprises nearly 3,000 connections. The civic agency has been inspecting every consumer’s meter to conduct pressure tests and locate leakage points.
“The water let into each area for consumption and the total amount consumed are assessed to find out leakage levels and latest technologies using sensors are being deployed to reduce the leakage,” he added.
The UFW level in Israel in just 3 per cent while Singapore has the best record in Asia at around 6 per cent, it was pointed out at a recent seminar in the City.