Nearly 50% of Delhi’s drinking water pipelines, spread over an area of around 7,900 km, are 20 to 30-year-old, and it would take seven to eight years to completely replace them, Water Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh told the Assembly on Friday. Maintaining that the government is planning a comprehensive revamp of the entire drinking water network in Delhi, Singh said, “In this tenure of the BJP government, 30% of the water pipelines can be revamped and to achieve this in a phased manner, the government will float tenders and award works in the next one year.” While the overhaul will cost around Rs 50,000 crore, around 7,000 km of old pipelines will be replaced in the next two years, he added. Singh said that out of Delhi’s 16,000-km water pipeline network, over 5,200 km of pipelines are more than 30 years old and around 2,700-km pipelines are 20 years old. “As a result, there are frequent leakages, pipe bursts, risks of contamination, and losses of up to 55 % as non-revenue water,” he added. The …