Hyderabad needs 1,156-km new pipes

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metro Water Board is incurring heavy losses in terms of water and revenue due to illegal connections and ageing, leaking pipe-lines. In a study conducted in 2009-10 to identify old, damaged, defective and leaking pipes, 991 km of pipeline was found to be in need of replacement.

A more recent study done in 2013-14 revealed that an additional 515 km of pipeline needed to be replaced.The water board is losing an estimated Rs 50-60 crore a year due to the old pipes and illegal connections.

About 40 per cent of the drinking water supplied by the Water Board is what is known as unaccounted for water. Illegal connections and leakage of water due to old pipelines contribute the major share to this.

Of the 991 km of pipe line identified for replacement in the earlier study at a cost of Rs 1,152 crore, about 476 km was replaced between 2009 and 2013-14.The 2013-14 study identified an additional 819 km of defective pipe lines, altogether totalling 1,334 km, covering the entire Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area.

About 178 km of pipe line has been replaced. That still leaves a huge 1,156 km that needs to be replaced.Water Board managing director M. Dana Kishore said that work will be taken up to replace about 350 km of pipe line at a cost of '150 crore.

He said that it was not possible to replace all the old pipelines at one time because large numbers of people will have to go without water when the repairs are being carried out and supply is stopped.

He claimed that the water board has reduced unaccounted for water to 33 per cent from 40 per cent. Mr Kishore said that it is proposed to install suitable meters on priority basis to potential domestic customers and all commercial and industrial connections.