Nanded (, India) Water Transmission and Intermittent Distribution Study M.M. Pandit

In 1986-87, Nanded, town on the banks of the east-flowing river Godavari on the , was facing severe water shortages as there was no water augmentation scheme implemented since late sixties. The work of transmission and distribution system study involved study of existing water system, projections of population and water demand, relating the demand to the water allocations made available by Government of Maharashtra from the nearby Vishnupuri impoundments formed by a dam, estimating the demands distribution per zone and planning water allocations from multiple treatment plants for the various service reservoirs; also planning the water transmission system from the treated water pumping stations at the treatment plants up to the service reservoirs spread over the city. The city had a population of about 250,000 and projected about 400,000 over a plan period of 20 years. Water to the town was to be augmented from existing 32 million liters per day (MLD) through two stages of development of 55 MLD each.

Using computerized hydraulic models for the transmission and distribution systems, the entire water system was strengthened so as to make available planned water allocations to each service reservoir complex and to reach the consumers at a minimum residual pressure of 7m head of water. The topography of the town is a slope towards the river with the north end of the city located about 2.5 km from the river bank. Closer to the river bank towards the eastern part of the city are a few humps that needed to be covered by local pumping. The rest of the city was controlled for supply through elevated service reservoirs distributing water to each zone of about 2.50 km² each. The heights and aspect of the elevated service reservoirs were so decided as to fit into the neighbourhood and the city’s architecture, and are useful in maintaining the required pressure at the designed flows.

Distribution systems were strengthened by laying duplicate parallel pipelines and extending the pipelines to unsupplied areas, giving additional consumer connections as to increase the planned coverage to 100%.

On implementation of augmentation scheme phase-I, the consumers in the entire city received sufficient water for their needs and in convenient supply timings; and those having their own underground cisterns and overhead terrace tanks started getting continuous water 24 hours a day, even after the water authority supplying water only about 3 hours a day.