Pune infra watch: 35% work on 24×7 water supply project completed, says PMC

At a technical conference on 24×7 water supply systems organised by the Union housing and urban affairs ministry in Delhi on December 21, Aniruddha Pawaskar, in-charge of civic water supply department, informed that the PMC has completed 35 per cent of the work on the project.

The civic body has incurred an expenditure of Rs 592 crore of the total Rs 2,429 crore worth work order issued for the project, he said.

“A total of 82 reservoirs needed to be constructed and 38 of them have been completed while construction of 31 reservoirs is in progress. The work on 13 reservoirs is pending due to land issues,” he said.

The work order was issued in September 2016 and has to be completed by the end of 2022, considering the extension given to it, he said.

The PMC has to install 2,55,541 automated metre reading (AMR) devices and has so far installed 54,257 of them, covering 20.46 per cent of its target, Pawaskar said. The work order for this was issued in 2018 and needs to be completed by 2023.

The transmission and distribution network is of 2,544.09 km and the addition of 1,618.44 km, including replacement of 218.23 km, is being done to extend the overall transmission network to 4,162.53 km.

The PMC has laid 606 km of new pipeline, completing 42 per cent of the work, for which the order was given in February 2018 and is supposed to be completed in March 2022.

The PMC has estimated water consumption of 1,479 million litres per day (MLD) by 2032 and 1,907 MLD by 2047. The civic body presently has a water treatment capacity of 1,651 MLD through treatment plants at seven locations.

There are 58 reservoirs across the city having a capacity of 245 ML while 82 new reservoirs have been proposed for 389 ML and would increase the storage capacity from 23 per cent to 33 per cent. It draws water from Khadakwasla dam, Pavna river and Bhama Askhed dam.

The project objective is to digitise the entire water supply system on a GIS platform, rehabilitate existing old water treatment plants, pumphouses and reservoirs, create adequate storage capacity, 100 per smart metering and implementation of telescopic tariff, real-time monitoring of the water supply system.

The PMC is raising funds for the project through various sources, including Rs 117 crore from the AMRUT scheme, Rs 165 crore from smart city funding, Rs 200 crore from municipal bonds, Rs 749 crore from municipal corporation contribution and Rs 1,231 crore from other sources. The actual project cost is Rs 2,818 crore and is estimated to increase by Rs 494 crore in five years to Rs 3,312 crore.