Hyderabad: Works to permanently address leakage problems at Gandipet conduit commence

For the last 10 years, the Gandipet conduit has caused leakages in Gandipet, Kokapet, Manikonda, CBIT College, Puppalaguda, Janaki Nagar, Kausar Colony, MES campus and other areas.

Hyderabad: The works to permanently address the leakage problems at the Gandipet conduit have finally commenced while ensuring that the supply of drinking water to the city was not affected. The HMWSSB Managing Director, Ashok Reddy on Friday inspected the works.

For the last 10 years, the Gandipet conduit has caused leakages in Gandipet, Kokapet, Manikonda, CBIT College, Puppalaguda, Janaki Nagar, Kausar Colony, MES campus and other areas. However, as any repairs undertaken to stop these leakages would mean an interruption in water supply for a month, the same were not taken up.

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The water board explored technologies to repair these leakages and finally a company from Chennai came forward to prevent the leakages using German technology without disrupting the supply, a press release said.

Repairs were undertaken experimentally and grouting for 10 meters of the conduit at Asif Nagar filter bed was successfully completed. Following this, Ashok Reddy advised the officials to complete the works in the rest of the areas.

The technology involves emptying the leakage area of water with special equipment and sending a special chemical to that area. Within seconds, the chemical solidifies and settles in the voids and stop the leakage. Through this method, the repair work can be carried out without stopping the water supply, the water board said in the press release.

The leakages were causing substantial loss of water with only 12 MGD of the 20 water supplied reaching the consumers and about 8 MGD of water wasted. This leakage problem was found to be in 45 areas covering a distance of about 14.5 km.

Ashok Reddy ordered the officials to complete the repair work without affecting the supply and added that with these repairs, another 14 MGD of water could be supplied to the consumers.