City making its way towards water-surplus

HMWSSB Managing Director M. Dana Kishore is hopeful of revolutionising water management in the city with more water grids.

HMWSSB Managing Director M. Dana Kishore is hopeful of revolutionising water management in the city with more water grids.  

‘ORR project will be completed in December, while water supplies project in peripheral circles will be completed this April’

City’s water board is working towards having a smarter outlook with officials staying active on social media and Android messengers. As two major water projects—peripheral water supply and ORR project—await completion, the board’s Managing Director, M. Dana Kishore, tells The Hindu that the Greater Hyderabad is progressing towards surplus water availability. Delayed water supply and water contamination at destination, however, remains a problem that are yet to be tackled.

Summer is midway through and some areas in Hyderabad complain of water shortage. Is the water board taking measures to tackle city’s water problem in April-May?

Delay in water supply is the result of power failures and old distribution pipelines that tend to have a cascading effect, but there is no water scarcity in Hyderabad. The board currently has 100 MGD water in reserve which can be supplied any time. Apart from 408 MGD of water that we supply, another 70 MGD was released this month on account of summer. In high-level areas, 270 slums were identified and water connections were provided. We have also done repair work worth ₹1 crore in bore-wells and pipeline junctions to ensure smooth water supply.

Which projects of the board will ensure water availability in Hyderabad in the longer run?

A total of 60 villages were deprived of water supply from the board till date. These villages located around the Outer Ring Road will start getting water from April 15. The ₹700-crore ORR project that will cover 183 gram panchayats and seven municipalities will be completed in December 2018. The water supplies project in the peripheral circles that will benefit 35 lakh population will also be completed this April. The tender process for Keshavapuram reservoir is complete and work on the project will start this year which will take a minimum of two years to be completed.

Smart Hyderabad has been a priority for the State government. How efficient is the water board in serving customers digitally?

We have one of the best grievance redressal systems in the country. We address 48 kinds of grievances, including sewerage and revenue billing issues among others. Voice interaction system, grievance monitoring and IT-related assistances have reduced 98% of the grievances that get registered. We are moving towards external auditing of grievance redressal, means a third party auditing that ensures efficiency. We are also planning to facilitate smart water bill payments where customers can pay the bill online.

What will be the way forward for smart water management in the city?

For smart water management, we need smart water grids. In peripheral areas, 3,000 km of water pipelines now form a water grid, and additionally 12,000 km will be part of a grid by September or October this year. This allows the board to know what its assets are and where it requires monitoring, maintenance and repair. This will revolutionise water management in the city.

Though smart city is the target, there are areas where consumers still get polluted water or low pressure in water pipelines. How do you plan to tackle this contradiction in the development plan?

These problems occur in residential areas where the lanes are narrow, where sewerage line, storm water line and water pipeline are all cramped together. The water provided at the source is good, but at the destination it might get polluted. We constantly take water samples for testing. Smart water management will solve these problems in the future.