Kolkata: The Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), Firhad Hakim, has announced that the civic body is working on war footing towards digitally mapping the city’s potable water infrastructure, aiming to significantly improve planning, maintenance and reduce water wastage.
Hakim recently told the media that the MMIC of the Drainage department, Tarak Singh, is heading the initiative which will help the civic body in managing data relating to water supply. The project will chart the entire network of underground potable water lines — recording details such as pipe diameters, stand-posts, household connections, valves and booster pumping stations.
This move follows prior success in digitally mapping drainage and sewer lines across Kolkata; the water pipeline mapping is now being rolled out ward by ward. The KMC aims to create a unified, ward-wise database of the city’s water network: tracing where six‑inch and four‑inch pipelines lie, how many public taps serve a street and where booster stations feed which zones.
One objective is to curb the rampant wastage of potable water by improving visibility on pipeline conditions and dispatching repair crews more swiftly. Officials have already installed water meters in many neighborhoods and believe that combining meter data with the pipeline map will further support leak detection and demand forecasting.
The initiative also ties into broader KMC goals — reducing dependence on groundwater, augmenting treated surface water and installing more booster pumps. Using the digital map, future infrastructure upgrades — such as capacity increases or new booster stations — can be precisely planned and executed.
Officials say once operational citywide, the system will underpin smarter decision‑making for water supply projects, targeted repairs and leak mitigation. Civic engineers will gain a powerful tool for optimising distribution, locating faults and tracking usage trends. This digital transformation would involve melding GIS technology and real‑time data to help the KMC in its pursuit of sustainable water management.