Peripheral townships flood PMC with water demands,civic body throws up hands

“Townships on the outskirts have to make their own arrangements. We are providing basic drinking water to some of them,while the remaining that are not in PMC limits have to make their own arrangements,” said Pramod Nirbhavane,development engineer,PMC.

He said that within the city,inequitable distribution has led to acute water shortage in several areas. “The mandatory 135 litres per person per day can be met if there is equitable distribution. In fact some areas receive 194 litres per person per day. If inequitable supply is ensured,there would be better water supply within the city,” he added.

With more shortage in summer,townships with more than 100 flats have to depend on tankers. Superintending engineer,PMC,N Salunkhe,says that when townships apply for the mandatory building sanction and water facilities,they are clearly instructed to make their own provision for water.

“Townships are supposed to use recycled water,make their own arrangements for water and even use their own source for power generation. Many townships are already doing that,” adds Salunkhe.

Amanora township,which is outside PMC limits,started its own water project well aware of the fact that they cannot depend on PMC. “We knew we would have a big demand and so before we started the project we retained some of the old wells in the area and made use of canal water which flows in the area. We are recycling the water and we plan to increase it by 70 per cent,” said Aniruddha Deshpande,MD City Corporation.

Satish Magar,president of Credai and the brain behind Nanded city,says that his township falls outside the Nanded corporation limits and so they turned to the irrigation department for water. “We will treat water given by the irrigation department and have a sewage treatment plant to treat water,’’ says Magar who adds that townships under the corporation limits should be provided water as taxes are collected.

This year too,the PMC has requested the irrigation department to reserve water in dams till August rather than May,in view of the depleting water table.

“Summers require lots of water for irrigation as well as domestic purposes and we had make the request to the irrigation department. Under these circumstances,it gets very difficult to supply water to upcoming projects,” says Salunkh adding that severe water shortage Pune city had been facing in the last two summers has made the PMC draw up these plans.