Goa to replicate Portugal water, sanitation model

NT NETWORK

 

PANAJI

The Public Works Department (PWD) will ink a MoU with the Portugal government to replicate in the state the service model for water and sanitation services, principal chief engineer of PWD Uttam Parsekar has said.

He was speaking as guest of honour at the 50th annual foundation day of the Indian Water Works Association’s (IWWA) Goa centre held in the city on Tuesday.

He said that a team of PWD engineers headed by Chief Secretary Dharmendra Sharma had visited Portugal to study the types of wastewater treatment systems, and technologies used in function and operation of water treatment plants in both rural and urban areas.

Portuguese Environment Minister João Pedro de Matos Fernandes will travel to Goa between September 28

and 30 to sign a MoU between the company Águas de Portugal Internacional and the Public Works Department of Goa.

On a solution to run a water treatment plant during power breakdown, Parsekar said that PWD has received a proposal from NIT-Goa to provide solution on alternative technologies to run a water treatment plant in absence of power. If water does not reach the plant from regular supply chain then using alternative power system water can be sourced from the next source dam, which is need of the hour,” he informed.

Speaking on management models of water and sanitation, Parsekar said that water treatment and sewage treatment plant automation is one of the important requirements for the state, which improves the quality of products as well as reduces requirements of manpower. He said, “We want to make entire water treatment and sewage treatment plant system run under SCADA systems.”

In an effort to bridge the gap between current and future water supply demands, Parsekar said, “We have taken up auditing of existing sewerage and water infrastructure to draw a roadmap to provide equitable water supply across the state and also assist in planning new water and sanitation infrastructure. We have 24-hour water supply in Margao and Ponda but we want to ensure 24-hour water supply in near future across the state,” he informed in his key-note address.

He said that PWD has set a target to replace all existing water meters with digital meters by 2022 in order to tap loss of revenue and ensure error-less billing. He said, “We have around 3 lakh households and so far we have replaced 90,000 meters in South Goa. We will take up the project in phases and by next three years, all old meters will be replaced,” he added.

He further said that under increased and unprecedented pressure to do more with less and to find new means of paying for infrastructure, water owners and operators recognise that it is essential to understand and optimise the capacity of their assets.

He appealed to the engineers to respond through robust, innovative and appropriate long-term planning and engineering solutions, to help them adapt and meet current and future challenges.

“It is estimated that more than 1 billion people lack access to a minimal amount of clean water and therefore considering water as resource and not commodity, we have to conserve and reduce wastage of water,” he added.