Hyderabad: HMWSSB gears up for monsoon season

HMWSSB is initiating precautionary measures to ensure the quality of drinking water supply during the rains is effectively maintained

Hyderabad: Even as the summer is passing through comfortably without any issues related to drinking water supply, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB), is gearing up for the monsoon season.

Ahead of the monsoon season that is expected to commence in the first half of June, the water body is initiating precautionary measures to ensure the quality of drinking water supply during the rains is effectively maintained.

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According to the HMWS&SB officials, the precautionary measures were aimed at ensuring the drinking water supplied to households contain appropriate levels of residual chlorine – 0.5 parts per million (ppm) even during intense spells of rain.

As a part of this exercise, the chlorine analysers fixed at the outlets of service reservoirs are being inspected and over 6 lakh chlorine tablets will be procured for distribution in the slums.

Speaking about the measures that will be taken up to avoid water pollution in the monsoon, HMWS&SB officials said they are planning to deploy additional staff exclusively to monitor the three-step chlorination process.

“To make sure water is not contaminated/polluted, we have adopted a three-step chlorination process and additional staff will be deployed to dedicatedly monitor the entire process during intense spells of rain and monsoon,” said an official.

Under this three-step chlorination process, in the first phase, chlorination is carried out at the water treatment plants (WTP), in the second phase, chlorination is done at the Main Balancing Reservoirs (MBR) and finally, booster chlorination is done at the service reservoir.

Equipment

With the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) having placed a ban on road cutting in view of monsoon, identifying pollution sources in water lines turns out to be a challenge while resolving water pollution grievances.

To address this, the HMWS&SB will deploy its staff equipped with special equipment based on water pollution complaints and at vulnerable locations. This equipment does not require road excavation and the machine operates through a camera that probes into water lines thereby assessing the condition of pipes.

6 Monsoon Safety Teams to be deployed

A total of 16 HMWS&SB Monsoon Safety Teams will be deployed round the clock during monsoon. Each team comprising five members will execute rain relief works in special vehicles which are equipped with a dewatering motor, a generator along with the required equipment.

In addition to HMWS&SB monsoon teams, six Safety Protocol Teams (SPTs) will go around the city to inspect works related to water pipelines, sewerage lines, cleaning of manholes, installation of Sewage Treatment Plans (STPs) etc. They will also be responsible for inspecting the work carried out in the city and ensure safety measures are taken at the site including setting up barricades, illumination, installation of radium indicators etc.

“HMWS&SB staff will go around the localities to check for open manholes and also to replace damaged manhole covers with new ones,” said an HMWS&SB official.