Barricades on a few streets, safety tapes in a few others or an earthmover digging trench have become common sight in R.S. Puram in the past few months. All these have to do with the water supply distribution improvement project – popularly 24x7 drinking water supply scheme – that Suez Projects Pvt. Ltd. is executing on behalf of the Corporation.
The Corporation is spending ₹646.71 crore to revamp water supply distribution in the 60 wards that are part of the old city and has taken up work first in R.S. Puram, which covers Wards 23 and 24 and a part of Ward 79.
In these areas, the Corporation will replace almost all water supply pipelines – feeder mains that convey water from one tank to another, distribution mains that carry water to different areas and house service connection pipes – with wider width ones for supplying water at adequate pressure.
“The work in R.S. Puram involves digging earth for 60 km to laying new pipelines for as much length and replacing pipelines for 5,500 house service connections and fixing new meters,” says an official. Of the 60 km pipelines to be replaced, Suez Projects Pvt. Ltd. has completed work for 12 km. It is also checking pipelines in a few stretches, which together measure 18 km, to assess the quality. If the quality is good and they will last another 20 – 30 years, the company will not replace those pipelines.
To execute the work, the company has divided R.S. Puram (two wards in full and another in part) into two district metering areas (DMAs)– those streets that are north of the T.V. Samy Road come under the north DMA and those south of it come under the south DMA.
In each of the DMAs, the company will install pressure sensors and two pressure monitoring stations to ensure that residents get water at adequate pressure.
As for the house service connections, the company will replace the existing 15mm galvanised iron pipelines with 20mm HDPE pipelines, the official says. “The switch over to HDPE pipelines is to ensure that they last longer.”
Even as it goes about replacing the pipelines, Suez Projects Pvt. Ltd. will also establish a control room at the Corporation’s headquarters in Town Hall.
“The control room is from where the company will monitor flow of water, operate valves and read water consumed by each consumer,” the official explains.
But the control room work may not be completed by September and until it gets over, the exercise to assess water consumption by each consumer will continue as it is now, manually.
