The highly advanced project to detect leaks in water pipelines is going to be disaster as there is no blueprint of the water distribution pipeline network crisscrossing the city along with the number of valves in an area, believe a section of officials and staff in the Kerala Water Authority.
The KWA has awarded the leak detection project to Four ITS Pvt Limited and it will be implemented by an Abu Dhabi-based company Pure Technologies Ltd. on a 7-kilometre route fromKalamassery to Padivattom and another 3-km section from university junction to Edappally Junction at over Rs 1 crore.
The project is to strengthen the anti-theft measures and water loss detection under Non-Revenue Water Management (NRWM). However, the main problem of unknown pipelines, valves and leaks lie in the network of smaller pipelines, says a senior staff in KWA who was earlier associated with NRWM work. The project is to detect leaks in large pipelines.
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The force of the water is so huge in these pipelines that even a small leak gets enlarged within days and become visible. But the smaller pipeline network is what should bother KWA as nobody in the authority has much idea about it, says the employee.
The technologies — Smart Ball and Sahara — are advanced techniques that are being used here to detect leaks in large pipelines bringing water to pump houses — the second level of distribution.
Smart Ball is a free-swimming acoustic leak detector capable of detecting very small leaks. The cost of one such ball is about Rs. 6.5 lakh, has a spongy texture with a diameter of about 150 mm. It can be used only in pipelines that are not less than 350 mm in diameter. Sahara is a wired technology to detect air traps, leaks and unauthorised tappings, but it can be used in pipelines only above 250 mm diameter.
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Both technologies working on live pipes provide information on structural defects in the pipeline. The information coded in the Smart Ball can be decoded once it is taken out of the pipeline. However, officials are not able to explain how this ball can be inserted without either stopping the main pumping or cutting the pipeline at some place.
The official, however, says a Smart Ball will be inserted only after the successful insertion and retrieval of a dummy ball at the marked points.
Former employee of KWA, C.A. Vijayachandran, says the whole exercise smacks of omissions and commissions. KWA had earlier also taken up projects, bought equipment worth lakhs and crores which are lying unused now, he says.
There are flow meters, pipe locators, metal detectors, thickness gauge which have never been used in a scientific manner.
The Smart Ball technology, he alleged, was a wasted exercise in Thiruvananthapuram. However, an NRWM official says that it had yielded results.