Water shortages owing to pipeline bursts have drowned the BMC’s plans to provide ample water supply to citizens. The civic body has been finding it difficult to detect leakages in pipelines as its crawler camera is outdated. It has therefore started the tendering process to deploy advanced cameras on lease for two years.
About advanced crawler cameras
Advanced crawler camera will help detect the exact location of leakage and video-record the incident. It can travel up to 200mt and be operated by remote control. It’s convenient for inaccessible spots.
It will ill also help get data like the size and width of the pipeline.
Leakages and bursts resulting in loss of water
The BMC supplies 3,850 million litres of water daily to Mumbai from the lakes in Thane through a network of pipelines. However, this network itself was laid more than 100 years ago and has become weak and fragile. There are bursts and leakages every other day, resulting in the loss of lakhs of litres every year. Pilferage and unauthorised connections cost the BMC another 20% or around 700 million litres of water daily.
BMC has been using crawler cameras for 12 years
The BMC has been using crawler cameras for the past 12 years. These cameras were sent inside the water channel through a special device with CCTV-like methods to locate the exact location with video of the leak. The data could also be accessed any time.

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