Treated water from Hussainsagar will be sold from April. The Buddha Purnima Project wing of the HMDA has three filling stations in place and will sell 8 million litres of non-potable recycled water daily. Buyers will have to provide their own tankers at the filling station, said officials, adding that the water can be used in areas like the construction industry.

According to BPP officials, except for the Kukatpally nala, all the other three — Banjara, Picket and Balkapur — nalas have been diverted.

Hussainsagar has two Sewerage Treatment plants, 20 million litres a day (mld) and 30 mld capacity. On a daily basis 50 mld of water is treated at the STPs and only 35 mld enters the lake from the two STPs for lake balance. Around 15 mld of recycled water is left over, of which 7 mld is used for the HMDA to maintain the greenery around Tank Bund and Necklace Road. The remaining 8 mld is for sale.

The non-potable water can be used for construction, irrigation, landscaping, gardening or any washing purpose. The price of the tankers will be fixed as per the current borewell tanker charges.

The treated water would contain dissolved oxygen, residual chlorine and other elements like Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and suspended solids.

“BPP will not provide any tankers, interested parties will have to bring their own vehicles; the filling stations will be operational from April onwards. The sale of lake water will help HMDA earn revenue to maintain the STPs,” said a senior official with BPP.

The main pipeline towards each tanker filling station has been designed to supply 450 cubic metres per hour to cater to demands in addition to tanker filling.