Coimbatore, first in India, to use technology to assess water pipelines’ quality

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COIMBATORE: Coimbatore Municipal Corporation signs an agreement with Suez Projects Private Limited, to improve the city’s water distribution via water supply pipelines. Suez Projects Private Limited will be using a technology, used for the first time in India, to test quality of water pipelines. With the installation of the new pipelines 60 wards of the corporation will have digital water meters.

A senior municipal corporation official said, “We have decided to replace all the asbestos and PVC pipelines. Suez Projects Private Limited is working on two technologies, external acoustic condition assessment (e-pulse) and electromagnetic method (scanner) to check the condition of metallic pipelines, especially internal and external corrosion. The scanner is placed on the surface of the pipeline after excavating the ground. It can scan 360 degrees surface of the pipe.”

The ‘e-pulse’ involved the sensors placed in the pipelines to study the quality. It will cover almost 10 locations of the city and the scanner technology that involved electromagnetic waves will study the quality of pipeline for over a kilometer long stretch.

The official said, “We have completed the test at six locations and the remaining would be completed within a day. While the scanner is used at four locations including DB Road, KK Nagar and corporation office, e-pulse is used at Nethajipuram and Varatharajapuram.” The testing equipment was imported from France. This new experiment will make Coimbatore the first city of India to have such advance technology, he added.