Journalism of Courage
With Pune city facing continued water shortage for the last two months,with many parts of the rural areas going dry for most of the summer season as well as the monsoon,the Pune Zilla Parishad has readied a Rs 10-crore plan to tackle water shortage. The plan has been forwarded to the district collector Chandrakant Dalvi for approval.
A senior ZP officer said that with most of the rural areas face immense water shortage,a detailed plan on water connections and tanker supply has been put out in the plan. Normally the same is done at the start of the year in January, now with the current year already seeing water shortage,the ZP officers have readied the plan from October 1- March 2010.
The plan has been readied for the new water connections to ensure repair works for both repairing of taps and digging of wells and borewells as well as ensuring tanker supply,the officers have readied a plan of Rs 10.21 crore for the first six months.
The ZP will also ready the plan for the second phase from April to September as part of next phase.
Even as the city is facing a water cut of 30 per cent,earlier guardian minister Ajit Pawar had said that last year,the four dams Panshet,Varasgaon,Khadakwasla and Temghar which supply water to the city were filled to capacity,however this year there is no sufficient rainfall and the water storage capacity is only 70 per cent for both Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
He had said that short term measures will not help solve problems and only with continued water cut will the city stand to get continous water supply. He said there were not enough stocks and such water cuts were needed to ensure supply during the coming months.
District officers were asked to come out with a detailed water supply plan and the Pune Zilla Parishad readied the plan for the rural areas of the city.
