Arusha may soon start churning out over 200 million litres of water on daily basis. This will be one of the highest in the country yet.
Presenting a report on the proposed grand water project for the city and its environs, the Managing Director for Arusha Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Authority (AUWSA), Engineer Ruth Koya said her authority is to start with the drilling of more than 56 deep water wells.
AUWSA will execute the wells’ drilling works through the Korea Engineering Consultants Corporation of South Korea. The two are in Association with Chell Engineering Company Limited from China and Tanzania’s DOCH Limited.
The official report from AUWSA indicate that the project starts with eleven wells to be drilled among other areas; Magereza, Tengeru, Mbuguni and Usa-River in Arumeru District, Arusha Region, as well as Maji-Moto in Hai District of Kilimanjaro.
At the moment AUWSA produces 40m litres of water per day against its daily needs of more than 95m litres. This means there is shortage of 55m litres.
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Increased water consumption
The Arusha Sustainable Urban Water and Environment Sanitation Delivery Project will cost US $234m. This will triple the city’s water consumption from the current 40,000 cubic meters to over 105 cubic meters per day.
The existing clean water pipes network measures just 312km in total. However, the new project will expand this to nearly 580km of service lines. The amount of water loss, especially through daily leaking, will see a reduction of 20%.
Arusha City has slightly more than 500,000 permanent residents. On the other hand, those currently under the AUWSA water services average at 325,000. The new scheme will see that the number of beneficiaries double to 600,000. This means almost every person in town gets more than enough water.
