The civic authority gives credit to Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition not only for the saving but also for utilising 23 MLD (Million litre per day) water that was going to waste
At a time when several parts of the city are not getting sufficient water supply due to a frequent breakdown in the pipeline network, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is giving presentations to other local government bodies on how its water department saved Rs6crore last year on the electricity bill.
The civic authority gives credit to Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) not only for the saving but also for utilising 23 MLD (Million litre per day) water that was going to waste.
City engineer Jagdish Patel said, "This project includes monitoring of water quantity, quality and energy parameters of 148 water distribution centres, four french wells and four water treatment plants. Soon, we will add 51 water distribution centres in the system."
He added, "After one-year monitoring on the system, we found that we have saved Rs6 crore as electricity bill and also utilised 23 MLD water which was being wasted."
Biren Raval, additional chief engineer, said, "The unit here works round the clock. We monitor all the water stations attached to the system. There is an automatic message and automatic alarm for any trouble which fixes the problem in a couple of minutes. With the online system, we have recently introduced automated valve operating system."
He added, "It will prevent discrepancies and solve water deficiency. If the water tank is filled, the valve will be closed automatically. No manual operations will be required unless there is some technical fault."
Still, there is a problem of inadequate water supply to the end user. One of the engineers said, "SCADA system monitors only measure and gives an audit of water distribution centres and treatment plant. There is no audit from water distribution centres to the end users. Many of the walled city areas have water pipelines which are more than 40 to 50-year-old and leakages occur there."
Criticising the system, leader of opposition Dinesh Sharma, said, "The BJP-run civic body always hurries in announcing its achievements. There are thousands of people in the city who have to struggle daily to get drinking water. Water tankers are being provided by the AMC to many slum pockets on a daily basis. What has the SCADA done for them?"
...& ANALYSIS
- SCADA can be effective only when it audits water till end users. There is no water audit from distribution station to water tanks and then to end users. Still thousands of litre of water goes waste.
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