Infrastructure development is the backbone of economic progress and plays a significant role in all activities that contribute to a nation’s development. Government spending on infrastructure projects has expanded, leading to more job opportunities. Water availability defines the economic growth of a nation. The government of India is working towards providing clean drinking water facilities to all households in the country with dedicated schemes. The Jal Jeevan Mission programme is progressing well, and it has achieved its goal of connecting six crore additional rural households with tap water connections since August 2019.

SPML’s contribution to the water sector
It has executed more than 650 projects in the segment to provide clean drinking water facilities to more than 50 million fellow citizens, mainly in areas with limited or nonexistent water sources.
It has constructed several significant projects during that time that have wholly altered how water supply services are provided in various Indian states. One is the Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana in Gujarat. Aiming to irrigate 1.8 million hectares of land in Saurashtra, Kutch, and North Gujarat, this vast project would provide drinking water facilities to almost 39 million people across 132 towns and 11,456 villages.
On the city’s water supply project, SPML, crucial tasks are being carried out. It is managing 1700 kilometres of pipeline to provide 2,50,000 house service connections, the installation of AMR and non-AMR water metres, and NRW reductions under these projects, which the Asian Development Bank is funding and which are aimed at serving more than 2 million people in six cities in Karnataka. After completing the EPC work, there will be five years of 24-hour customer service centres, metering, billing, operation, and maintenance in all cities.

Water Loss Management Project
In Bengaluru, SPML has completed a project for the city’s 43 DMAs. It found all the small and large leaks, breaks, and deteriorated conditions of 50- to 60-year-old pipelines with cutting-edge leak detection technology and advanced project execution methods. SPML replaced them with new pipes, permanently sealed all leaks, and installed electronic district metres compatible with GSM/GPRS communication to measure flow and pressure control to check for future leaks. Persistent attempts to alleviate the situation have had positive outcomes, with water loss drastically reduced from as high as 72 percent in certain DMAs to an ideal level of 10 percent. In the overall 43 DMAs, the reduction was significant, from an average of 53 percent to bring it down to 21 percent.

Ongoing project
Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, SPML is working on many water delivery projects in several Indian states. The Isarda Dausa Water Supply Scheme in Rajasthan aims to provide clean drinking water facilities to 2.5 million people in 1256 villages and five towns in Dausa and Sawai Madhopur districts.

In Uttar Pradesh, it is developing water infrastructure to provide tap water connections to over 1.6 million people in 915 villages in Moradabad, Amroha, Rampur, and Sambhal districts, apart from other projects.

Given the fantastic success, SPML Infra has seen over the past 41 years, it is not surprising that the company is listed among the Top 50 Private Water Companies in the World in a report by Global Water Intelligence, London. SPML Infra has its mark on several ongoing and finished projects for sustainable water management. (Excerpts taken from a speech on Water Management discussed during a B2B Purchase Procurement Series)