Foreign firms get involved with water supply system

It followed a deal by Thailand’s Thai Tap Water in December, to provide a tap-water system in Mawlamyine under an initial investment of US$10 million. Under a 70:30 joint venture with a local investor, the project aims to develop the system with an estimated initial daily production capacity of 30,000 cubic metres. Through the initial project, TTW hopes to show the Myanmar government of its potential to provide further services such as waste-water treatment.

According to Asian Development Bank, poor water-supply system in the country leads to diseases and the country needs improvement in terms of system capacity, water quality and coverage. It noted that in Yangon – the largest city with estimated 5.5 million inhabitants, only an estimated 40-50 per cent of the population is served by a municipal piped water system. There is no piped supply provision for most of the highly populated resettlement areas, informal settlements, and slums or squatter areas.

Working with Yangon City Development Committee in the past 10 months, Egis and WMI aim to improve the city’s water distribution system. 

“We have been assessing rehabilitation needs of Yangon water system in 3 townships - Tamwe, Thingangyun and Thaketa - since May last year. We shared our expertise to YCDC through capacity building actions in the field of data management, leakage detection, flow and pressure measurements,” said Marion Hasse, Egis’s local project coordinator.

The two companies conducted detailed diagnosis through customer surveys, flow and pressure measurements, evaluation of the condition and performance of the infrastructure (meters, customer connections), assessment of customer billing and invoicing, network modelling. 

“The project will be completed by the end of April. During the remaining months, we will consolidate our analysis and prepare a holistic and sustainable programme for reducing the level of non-revenue water (including both leakage and commercial losses) in the three townships,” she said.

It will include a programme of works to rehabilitate the water system and improve revenue together with actions to reinforce the capacity of YCDC to manage their water supply infrastructures such as capacity building, introduction of new tools, procedures and guidelines. 

A new key tool will also be established to provide geographical information of water infrastructure – pipes, meters and others – as well as service quality. The tool serves as performance indicators, to highlight the areas for future improvements.