Hyderabad: Water loss due to old reservoirs

Hyderabad: Fifty-year-old water reservoirs in the city are responsible for at least 10 per cent of water losses out of the 41 per cent non-revenue water (unaccounted) supplied by Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SW).

Apart from water theft and distribution system losses, reservoir loss is a big drawback. Master balancing reservoirs, principal distribution reservoirs and secondary distribution reservoirs have leaking walls and floors resulting in the non revenue water share, that adds to around 150 mgd.

HMWS&SB managing director Mr M. Dana Kishore said, “We have called for expression of interest for a study to be taken up for non-revenue water. The losses include system losses and illegal tapping of water. After the report by the consultant, estimating NRW and proposing various methods for its reduction, we will tighten the system to increase the revenues.”

HMWS&SB in the EOI stated: “Out of 355 MGD, the storage capacity of the reservoirs is about 200 MG, and the system involves transmitting water to master balancing reservoirs, principal distribution reservoirs and secondary distribution reservoirs, then to the consumers. The age of some of these reservoirs is over 50 years. These reservoirs have leaks in the walls and floor resulting in increase of NRW, which is about 10 per cent – approximately 35 MGD. Hence it is essential to arrest the leaks of the reservoirs through modern applications.”

HMWS&SB operations director Mr G. Rameshwar Rao said, “Out of 387 mgd today, the loss is estimated to be 41 per cent, mostly due to unauthorised tapping, pilferage, and illegal connections. Elsewhere, in the organised metros, the loss would be only 15 per cent. We are going to set up area-wise metres to know where actually there is a huge deficit between supply and revenue. In a 1992 World Bank project, an attempt was made to find out this but we didn’t succeed. At present we realise only Rs 107 crore revenue from the water supply.”