Real-time digital water management ensures clean drinking water in Indian district
India’s Koppal district in Karnataka is home to around one million people – 600,000 of them in the villages of Kushtagi and Yelbarga Taluka – but it regularly faces water shortages. This means that it is essential to minimize water lost through leaks in the infrastructure, so-called non-revenue water.
The Karnataka government needed a way to effectively monitor water flow and minimize leaks across a hugely dispersed network that includes 620 overhead tanks and 16 reservoirs. L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC, the lead contractor for the digital water management project, selected ABB AquaMaster 4 flowmeters and ABB Ability supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.
The digital water management project involved installing a network of RTUs (remote terminal units) for remote locations and pumping stations to track water use in real time. The SCADA systems monitor and analyze daily flow consumption patterns and identify possible leaks. They send this information in real-time to the central control room, which can deploy a repair team immediately.
The digital water flowmeters are designed for ease of use, and do not require special cables, tools or expert training to install and read. They also integrate with GPS, making it easy to pinpoint potential leaks. A range of security features are designed to prevent tampering or data eavesdropping.
Similar digital water flow technologies, including ABB flowmeters, are also in operation in cities across India, including Delhi, Bangalore, Surat, Ranchi, Kolkata, Udaipur, Chennai, and in semi-urban and rural areas like Gadag in Karnataka and Jawai in Rajasthan.
G Srinivas Rao, Head of ABB Measurement & Analytics in India, says: “As India moves swiftly towards smart and sustainable villages, towns and cities, one of the key challenges is water management. This project shows how ABB’s digital water management solutions can be deployed not only in cities but also to provide clean drinking water in the villages that are crucial to our agrarian economy. We are proud partners in this project in the state where ABB India is headquartered, and in the district which contributes so significantly to our agricultural output.”
