The New Delhi Municipal Council's (NMDC) latest Smart Cities initiative is an ambitious project to provide 24x7 potable water facility to its residents.
“This is one of the main goals of the Smart Cities project. Our project has three cornerstones — 24x7 water supply, all of the water supplied will be potable, AMI smart meters will be installed at about 150 places along existing water pipelines”, said DP Singh, NDMC's Director for Smart Cities and IT.
Regular water supply throughout the day will shift the onus of storing water in rooftop/underground tanks from individual households to the NDMC. The total area under NDMC is 42.7 sq m, in which the civic agency is solely responsible for water and sewerage supply. However, due to security reasons and space constraints, there is no water treatment plant in the NDMC area. Therefore, NDMC purchases 100 per cent of its potable water from the DJB.
Currently, NDMC purchases water from DJB from four different locations (tanks) with 18 in-let locations across the NDMC area. This water is then stored in 24 decentralized underground storage tanks and supplied via NDMC infrastructure.
“For this project (24x7 water supply), NDMC requires a larger-sized underground water reservoir, namely, exclusive access to one of the four DJB tanks. Such a tank is already available with the NDMC, namely Hasanpur Lake in Nehru Park. It has an overall capacity of 1 crore liters, which will be sufficient”, Singh said.
Additionally, NDMC will ensure the entirety of water being supplied is fit for consumption, meaning that no additional filtration systems, such as RO water purifiers, will be required. While the civic body already has the water supply/pipeline infrastructure in place, it has hired a consultant to install an advanced filtering technology, which is the biggest factor for the estimated cost of this project being Rs 300 crore (approximately).
"Of this amount, Rs 50 crore has been reserved for installing AMI smart metres and sensors at 150 locations at existing water-pipelines, through which one can monitor water consumption, water supply (quantity) and the quality of the water supplied through a smartphone app", Singh said. With consistent, real-time monitoring of water consumption and supply, Singh said he hopes for increased water conservation in the area.
Notably, Singh dispelled concerns regarding this project affecting the water supplied by DJB to the rest of the city. At present, about 125 MLDwater is supplied by the DJB in two sessions, morning and evening. "The average individual water requirement, and the amount of water supplied within the NDMC area will not change. Instead of water being supplied in bulk in the mornings and evenings, the same amount of water will be supplied uniformly throughout the day," Singh said.
