After water supply cuts, BMC urges school children to save water

Apart from this, the civic body also plans to send out messages (see box) to over 1.36 lakh mobile users and also send out e-mails to spread the word. “We will also put-up posters and banners to make people aware of situation. The basic intention is to make people realise that it is out collective responsibility as a city to make minimal use of water since we haven’t been receiving adequate rainfall this year,” said another official from the hydraulic department.

The posters, banners will also be put across BEST buses and railway stations. The civic body will also use social media websites like Twitter and Facebook and group messaging services like Whatsapp to reach out to people.

Owing to lesser rainfall in the month of June and dipping levels at the six major lakes in the city, the civic body imposed a 20 per cent water-cut in the city since July 3. A week later, the civic body decided to further target commercial users like swimming pools, garages etc.

As of July 14, the usable content in the six lakes – Modak Sagar, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Bhatsa, Tansa, Vihar and Tulsi stands at 96,992 million litres as opposed to 825,126 million litres recorded the same day last year.
tanushree.venkatraman@expressindia.com