TIRUCHY: Amid plans by the corporation to tap into abandoned quarries to augment the city’s water supply, the Union government recently informed the civic body that it has been selected for a joint project, wherein Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technology would detect leakage in potable water supply lines, thereby limiting wastage.
While civic body officials said project modalities are yet to be revealed, they said a French company will develop the technology for the project. In a recent one-on-one, review meeting hosted virtually by officials of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Tiruchy corporation officials were informed of water conservation measures like drawing from abandoned quarries when the former discussed the AI-based technology.
The former also announced that it has selected the corporation for the joint project. On the project, an official said, “Currently, the use of AI-based technology to monitor potable water supply is in the planning stage and we are yet to finalise things like the period of implementation. As per our plan, the information provided by the AI-based system would go to our Integrated Command and Control Centre.
We would raise such plans in the upcoming meeting with MoHUA.” A corporation engineer said, "A French company will develop the AI-based technology that can alert us when there is leakage in the supply lines. We don't know whether MoHUA has plans to implement the same project in other cities. In our case, we are likely to have such technology within a year or two."
The plan comes when work is underway to implement the 24/7 drinking water project in the city. Senior officials said that conservation measures like the water leakage detection project are necessary. As for the plan for tapping into quarries, a senior official said, “We are planning to use the water pooled up in abandoned quarries. We have identified three such quarries in city limits for the project."