The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) is working to fix the long-standing problem of water leakage from the historic Gandipet Conduit. The Board has started using a special chemical treatment method to repair the leaks without stopping the city’s water supply. On Friday, Ashok Reddy, the Managing Director of HMWSSB, inspected the repair work that is currently in progress.
For the past ten years, severe leaks have been reported in several areas, including Gandipet, Kokapet, Manikonda, CBIT College, Puppala Guda, Janaki Nagar, Kausar Colony, and the MES Campus. Officials said that fixing these leaks would normally require shutting down the water supply for about a month. This is why the repair work was delayed for so long. However, HMWSSB has now found a solution by partnering with a company from Chennai, which uses advanced German technology to fix the leaks without cutting off the water supply. Recently, they tested this method by repairing a 10-meter section of the conduit at the Asif Nagar filter bed, and the work was successful. Similar repair work will soon begin in other affected areas.
To avoid disrupting the water supply, the HMWSSB is using a chemical treatment to fix the leaks in the conduit. First, they drain the water from the leaking area using special equipment. Then, they inject a special chemical that quickly hardens and fills the gaps, stopping the leakage. This method allows repairs to be done without affecting the water supply. Gandipet has the capacity to supply 26 million gallons of drinking water per day. However, due to these leaks, about 6 million gallons are wasted, leaving only 12 million gallons for customers. These leaks have been found in 45 locations spread over a distance of 14.5 kilometers. Once all repair work is completed, an additional 14 million gallons of water can be supplied to the city’s residents, according to a senior HMWSSB official.
