Government to set up more water ATMs

Hyderabad: It has already started ‘Water ATM’, which literally means ‘water for people’. There were five Water ATMs installed in Hyderabad. Three of them were already started in places like Old Bowenpally, Paradise, JBS. GHMC plans to set up 200 more such water ATMs by year-end in the city.

The water board chief directed officials to work out the proposal of installing water ATMs, wherein orders from a state government, pilgrim centres, public places and bus stands could get a litre of chilled water for Re1. 

In view of groundwater supply in the city, the official said 1,000 rain water harvesting structures would be put in place.Explaining about the concept, Surya Shasank, Water Engineer at Bowenpally says “Water ATM works on sim card which is inserted inside the software machine. 

So, if any technical problem occurs then we get immediate message on our cell phone about it. The water ATMs are a combination of appropriate technologies required to treat the water available at different sites. The company’s Supremus Aqua Water Treatment System has been used to make the filtration and purification process efficient.” It is operated on solar energy and electricity; they can be remotely maintained and managed.

A student Jordan said, they also come with different filtration processes, firstly it removes odor in the water and can be managed by a real time monitoring software. It has a PCD (Purified Ciller Dispensers) unit which has a multistage start up ozone which removes the hardest water by purification. It has an option to change chilled and normal water,” he added. 

Shop vendor Prabhu says, this is really helpful for normal people because summer is almost there and here, we have lots of colleges and huge people work around so if government can start it in more number of places then it can be more helpful. And wastage of water during treatment for all river and municipal sources, while for water from bore wells, the wastage is limited.

Speaking on the Water ATM card, Pushpender, the sanitary officer at Bowenpally said “We are also planning a meeting to establish more water ATMs in other places. We are just seeing the progress of five ATMs which we had placed right now. After six months of progress, we will decide to set up ATMs in slum areas. 

The machine is accepting 1, 2, 5 and 10 rupees coins. We are also thinking to introduce card swiping at these Water ATMs.

Water ATM worker Sudha says, each water ATM has an estimated lifespan of 10 years and a capacity to dispense up to 15,000 litres per day. Dispensing drinking water in quantities such as 250 ml and 1 litre at Rs 1 per litre on a refill basis, people are encouraged to take away larger quantities for the utilise of their families, she includes. 

By Vandana Sharma