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Water supply has probably been the most arduous task of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) with a number of obstacles,like mushrooming of slums and large scale development and redevelopment projects over the past decade,bothering the administration.
While water was the top priority of Shiv Senas 2007 manifesto,with maximum promises made on improving water supply,the exponential unplanned growth coupled with slow progress in strengthening water infrastructure have rendered these promises unfulfilled to a large extent.
Looking back,the failure for the Sena-led BMC has been its inability to fulfill its first promise of providing round-the-clock good quality high pressure water.
This,despite an increase in capital expenditure on water operations and water supply projects from Rs 417 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 2,018 in 2010-11.
The Rs 3,000 crore Sujal Mumbai Abhiyaan Scheme launched by the Shiv Sena-ruled BMC in 2007,to ensure round-the-clock water supply by plugging leakages and pilferage,has been mired in controversy for corruption allegations within officials by corporators in the civic standing committee.
Despite spending Rs 800 crore in the project till December 2011,for laying of new pipelines,the administration is yet to submit a progress report on the project.
Water Theft
It may have been an over-ambitious promise to start with,but despite having undertaken numerous short-term projects for arresting leakages along old,creaky pipelines and long-term projects to replace worn out pipelines and lay underground tunnels,the city still loses more than 600 million litres of unaccounted water per day.
Attributing the loss to theft,officials from the hydraulic engineering department of the BMC say,water losses are mainly caused due to unauthorised connections in slums.
A senior engineer in the maintenance department of the said,The problems with water supply in Mumbai,such as contamination and low pressured supply,are mostly localised. This is largely due to illegal connections in slums where people haphazardly break water mains and extract water from between, he said.
The problem is deeply rooted since in most cases,these activities are supported by local corporators to appease slum dwellers, he added. Ironically,a promise in the manifesto was to punish those involved in water theft.
Automatic Meteres
The ambitious project of installing automatic meters undertaken in 2008,to increase revenue from water and reduce the quantity of unaccounted water,was stopped midway,leaving out all slums and largely defeating the purpose of the project.
There have been a lot of instances of theft and breakage of these expensive automatic water meters because of which the BMC stopped installing AMRs in slums. We have planned to install 1.8 lakh non-automatic water meters in these areas, said Rajiv Jalota,Additional Municipal Commissioner.
Redevelopment
Rise of buildings due to redevelopment and increase in population has also been seen as another cause of inadequate water in the city.
On a single road that receives its supply from a six-inch pipeline,the number of people living in the area has doubled owing to the redevelopment. The entire water planning fails in such cases,since those living on the fag ends of the supply network get water at low pressure, said an official.
Old pipelines
Another major problem faced by the civic body are the old pipelines. The proximity of these worn out pipes to sewer lines causes contamination to enter the pipes during non-supply hours.
Out of the 4,000 kilometers of old pipelines identified for replacement or repair in 2006,about 506.91 km have been replaced and about 331.3 km repaired.
This means less than 20 per cent of the project has been completed in about five years.
The BMC supplies 3,350 million litres of water per day as compared to the citys demand of 4,300 mld.
In addition to the existing six dams,the BMC is currently building the Middle Vaitarna dam,which is slated for completion in March 2012.
The dam,that is to augment supply by 450 mld was supposed to have been finished in 2002 as per the original deadline.
Work on future projects such as Gargai and Pinjal has also not gained any momentum.
However,Sena maintains that adequate water works have been carried out.
While most of the water pipelines,which cause leakage have been replaced,the rest of the project will be completed in the next few years.
It is difficult to stop theft or leakage of water in a specific time but we have a phase wise plan,which will give good results over the next few years, said Sunil Prabhu,Shivsena leader in the BMC.
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