Water audit: City to be divided into 27 zones

The three-year water audit that the civic body is planning will see the entire city divided into 27 district metering zones (DMZ).

The three-year water audit that the civic body is planning will see the entire city divided into 27 district metering zones (DMZ). The BMC has already identified a total of 22 DMZ in the eastern and western suburbs. The island city still remains to be demarcated. The project is slated to take off within the next three months, officials said.

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“Once the data on the leaks comes in, a leak detection survey and leak repair work through an external agency will be done in each DMZ”, said BMC chief Subodh Kumar, in his budget speech on Tuesday.

This exercise, however, might face rough weather in the island city. A majority of water connections, estimates say almost 1 lakh, are those in old structures and hence, are unmetered. Although the BMC has begun the exercise of slowly installing meters in the city, this process could take time. Thanks to this, the civic body hasn’t even been able to identify DMZ in the island city yet.

This effort is similar to another attempt at curbing leakages. Many years ago, the civic body had established leak detection units (LDUs) that consisted of civic officials, and were supposed to concentrate on particular areas. 585 such zones were created for an equal amount of LDUs.