National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) will take measures to enhance the water distribution system in Colombo and to reduce the non - revenue water supply (NRW) by 18 percent by 2021, Greater Colombo Water and Wastewater Management Improvement Investment Programme (GCWWMIIP) Director S.A.Rasheed said.
He said this while addressing the Media today at GCWWMIIP office in Wellawatte.
‘Though there are many projects to increase that water demand in Colombo, there is no significant project launched to rehabilitate the network resulting in an extremely high level of NRW’ the GCWWMIIP Director said.
‘The NWSDB launched the GCWWMIIP with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB) to establish a long term mechanism to reduce the NRW and to enhance the efficiency and the capacity of the water supply system in Colombo’ the Director said.
He said that the project costs Rs 40 billion. The ADB has provided 202 million US dollars and the government has provided 73 million US dollars to support this project.
"According to the statistics, around 600,000 people live in Colombo and more than 400,000 people visit Colombo daily for various purposes’ he said.
He said that the daily pipe borne water consumption in Colombo per day is 160,000 cubic metres. The water supply system of the city is more than 100 years old and is not enough to provide pipe borne water to the rising population.
‘People living in low pressure areas recieve water only for 6-10 hours per day’, he said.
Director Rasheed added that around 300,000 cubic metres of water is supplied to Colombo daily. But 33 percent of it is lost owing to leakages in the distribution pipe system, and the government incurs a considerable loss due to this wastage.
He further added that short term inconveniences may be caused to the commuters due to the project activities implements on the roads by traffic congestion near the project sites, dust and noise.
We urge the public to support this project without considering these inconveniences, the GCWWMIIP Director said.