Over population causing chaos to be augmented?

Along with the temperature that's soaring extraordinarily high, the acute shortage of water has added to the misery of the City Beautiful. T...

Along with the temperature that8217;s soaring extraordinarily high, the acute shortage of water has added to the misery of the City Beautiful. The supply is meagre, unpredictable and at low pressure. With no distress support system, like hand pumps or private deep-bore wells existing, as the same are not permitted under the UT by-laws, the problem has reached a chaotic limit.

Though the authorities concerned are claim to be addressing the problem on a war-footing, yet things seam to have gone out of control as enough doesn8217;t appear to be improving. Its also not that situation coming to such critical pass was not imminent. But inherent slow reacting system in addition to some external factors is the cause of scarcity of water, despite the region being known for plenty of its as compared to other parts of the country. The main reasons for this problem are: Overloading of existing infrastructure, Power shortage, Mismanagement, and Pilferage and disuse. The basic infrastructure of the city was designed for a population of one lakh with a provision for further expansion up to two lakhs.

The population, both planned and unplanned, having grown manifold, the water supply system could not be upgraded in the same proportion to cope up with this growth. Authorities concerned may only be planning for expected planned growth but its mainly the unplanned and uncontrolled growth that overloads the system. Frequent non-availability of power due to mismanagement, as otherwise it has been claimed that there is no shortage of power this year, resulting in frequent power failures tells upon the functioning of water supply system too. Inherent apathetic attitude of the authorities concerned to bring under control the mismanagement of whole system in general and distribution network in particular is another contributing factor.

Unauthorised jhuggi-jhonpri colonies are another major contributor to the overloading of the system. As a few taps provided in each colony are just not sufficient to meet the needs of their inmates, they resort to causing artificial and perennial leakage somehow in the main supply lines at the points convenient to them. Frequent appeals are issued through media and orders are issued by local authorities regarding conservation of water. All the citizens must be conscious of this and exercise self discipline. At the same time appeals like non-watering of lawns/gardens sound a bit negative in face of slogans to keep city Clean and Green. In totality, it has to be a concerted effort by al, i.e. authorities on their side to plan, provision and maintain the system, legitimate users on their part to exercise restraint to avoid disuse and keep a tight vigil on pilferage and leakages, that will see the city through the hard times.