Thanks to continuous efforts in investing, expanding the water supply network and focusing on safe water supply, HueWACO is the first unit to be announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as providing safe water in Vietnam since 2009. However, like many other water supply companies in the country, HueWACO faces many challenges in investing in infrastructure, maintaining and ensuring water supply for the entire mountainous and rural areas...

Expanding water coverage

Maintain safe water supply

Climate change, saltwater intrusion, urbanization, polluted water sources... have caused many major impacts on water supply; especially clean water supply for daily life - an essential need in people's lives. In 2024, large provinces and cities such as Hanoi, Nghe An, Binh Thuan, the Mekong Delta provinces... will face the challenge of ensuring clean water supply for 100% of people in urban areas along with widespread clean water shortages, seriously affecting people's lives and social security. In addition, water treatment technology in many factories nationwide is slow to be invested in, water supply infrastructure is degraded... directly affecting water quality and clean water supply services. In some areas, the quality of water after treatment does not meet Vietnamese standards. The content of some substances such as nitrite, iron, manganese, etc. is still at a high level, not suitable for domestic use, and can affect people's health.

While major cities across the country are still struggling to solve the problem of "clean water", in Thua Thien Hue province (now Hue city), over the past 15 years, thanks to the use of advanced technology, combined with optimal solutions in clean water treatment, people throughout the city, from urban to rural, mountainous, remote areas, have been able to use safe clean water, with guaranteed water quality and increasingly superior service quality.

In addition to constantly researching and applying science and technology to improve treatment technology, since 2022, HueWACO has also installed online water quality monitoring devices (turbidity, pH, residual chlorine) at stages such as source - sedimentation - filtration - storage tank and on the network, with 92 online measuring devices at factories and 22 devices on the network. Thanks to that, the company has promptly monitored and handled, reducing all quality risks that occur during the water treatment and supply process. On the other hand, clean water quality is also periodically inspected by CDC, Nha Trang Pasteur Institute and information is published on the company's website so that people can easily look up and monitor.

HueWACO is also proud to be the first unit recognized by the World Health Organization to provide safe water in Vietnam since 2009 in Hue city (formerly) and expanded to the whole province (currently Hue city). HueWACO's safe water supply is specified in the following aspects: Clean water meets Vietnamese standards (QCVN) 01-1:2018/BYT; indicators of turbidity, Fe, Mn... are all guaranteed and many times lower than the standards of the Ministry of Health, moving towards being drinkable from the tap.

In the period from 2018 onwards, HueWACO focused on expanding the scope of water supply, increasing the rate of people using clean water with quality indicators aiming to ensure compliance with Vietnamese standards (TCVN) and QCVN such as: water quality, water pressure, continuous water supply, cashless payment rate under 20%...

Continuously improve customer service quality

Improve service quality

Since 2018, especially from 2022 onwards, HueWACO aims to provide safe and sustainable water with the goal of improving service quality, all indicators are higher than current QCVN and TCVN. Accordingly, ensuring the supply of flow to meet customer needs; water pressure in the whole city is greater than 10m, especially in the 2 central districts maintained above 15m; continuous water supply ensures 95% of D<400 pipe leakage points are repaired within 4 hours. In addition, service indicators such as: Water installation time is guaranteed to be less than 7 days according to regulations, in wards under 6 days, reduced by 1 day according to regulations, non-cash payment over 85%.

Orientation for the period 2025 - 2027 to 2030, vision 2045, HueWACO continues to improve service quality, on par with major cities in Southeast Asia, towards providing safe water, drinkable water at the tap. In addition to implementing digital customer services, improving customer experience, service quality indicators also continue to be improved...

Hue City has a large area, covering over 5,000km2, water sources are all located in the west of the city while the population is concentrated in the east, towards the sea, some areas where people live are scattered. Over the years, HueWACO has continuously invested, upgraded and expanded the pipeline network system with more than 5,400km spreading throughout Hue City, from the plains to the mountains, coastal areas, beaches... Despite the large area, water pressure is always maintained at 10-15m thanks to HueWACO's investment in a system of more than 70 booster stations and multi-level pumps. With this water pressure, almost every family in Hue can use water directly connected from the external water supply system without the need for a pump system and tank on the roof. This makes a special impression on visitors to Hue and even on officials and companies operating in the water supply industry in Vietnam. Thanks to that, each household also saves on system investment costs, operating electricity costs and ensures safety; Hue urban beauty seen from above.

When discussing in water supply industry seminars, HueWACO General Director once shared: As a member of the Water Supply Club for Urban Civilization (G9 Club) since 2022, gathering leading water supply companies in Vietnam; with many difficulties in resources; clean water prices were issued in 2016 and remained unchanged since 2018 (up to now nearly 10 years); in the context of input costs of raw materials, fuel, materials, chemicals, electricity, labor... all increasing sharply, but we are still determined to promote internal strength to bring the best water quality, service quality, increasingly perfect for the people of Hue city.

Expressing agreement with the above opinion, Chairman of the Vietnam Clean Water Association - Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Diep said: One of the problems in establishing clean water prices according to the guidance of Circular 44/2021/TT-BTC that the Association is discussing with the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Finance is: Establishing clean water prices must go hand in hand with service quality (taking service quality as a measure of clean water prices for customers, cannot be equalized, non-market).

Another difficulty that HueWACO is facing is to ensure water supply for both urban and rural areas, while infrastructure investment in rural areas requires large capital, high investment rates while demand is low, and capital recovery time is slow. Water prices in the period of 2016-2018 must be cross-subsidized between urban and rural areas to ensure the goal of encouraging people in rural and mountainous areas to use clean water, increasing the rate of clean water use in the whole city to 100%.

However, to meet the expectations of the people of Hue city - the 6th centrally-governed city of Vietnam; especially in the current period, when the technology of water production industry is developing very quickly and strongly, HueWACO not only makes efforts and prepares resources, invests in innovation to not fall behind, and catch up with the general development trend of the water industry in Vietnam and the world.

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Article and photos: N. Ngoc – Q. Anh – H. My

Source: https://huengaynay.vn/kinh-te/cap-nuoc-an-toan-va-nang-cao-chat-luong-dich-vu-bai-1-no-luc-mo-rong-mang-luoi-bao-phu-cap-nuoc-152053.html