Water supply 8212; BMC strikes at root of sabotage

October 15: Striking civic employees will not be able to sabotage the city's water supply again, with the civic administration planning to...

October 15: Striking civic employees will not be able to sabotage the city8217;s water supply again, with the civic administration planning to install automatic, pre-programmed electronic valves to control Mumbai8217;s water supply network. The project, which will be implemented in seven months, will come as an immense relief to the city, whose water supply was almost completely choked on Thursday and Friday by striking civic employees.

In an act of sheer irresponsibility, the staff at the city8217;s many pumping stations simply shut off some valves at random while keeping others at full throttle before abandoning their work stations for two days. When civic officials stepped in, the network was in fact thrown further out of gear as they lack technical knowhow. As a senior civic official explains, it is not possible to know whether a particular valve is open or shut simply by looking at it. Worse, he points out, civic engineers joined the strike at the last moment, leaving the administration completely stranded.

However, once the automatic valves are installed, all the civic administration will have to do to prevent a repeat of what happened last week is cordon-off the pumping stations with security guards and allow the water supply network to function on auto-pilot.

Says Additional Municipal Commissioner, Subodh Kumar: 8220;Electronic valves which can be pre-programmed to open and close at a fixed timings will obviate all the problems strikes bring with them. Getting the staff with the technical know-how to operate these valves from the Maharashtra Industrial development Corporation or the Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran at short notice is quite a task. Moreover, you can8217;t expect them to help us out for days together during a protracted agitation.8221;

The proposal for automatic valves was fielded last month during a study being conducted by civic officials to determine the strategy for water supply in Mumbai for 2021. Such studies, which are conducted periodically, aim to increase the system8217;s efficiency by taking factors like population into account. 8220;We felt that Mumbai should switch over to pre-programmed valves as is the case in many cities in developed countries. A team has been set up to study the proposal,8221; Kumar told Newsline

. He says the technology is indigenously available as there are Indian companies which manufacture electronic valves. The project cost, which is yet to be determined as the feasibility studies are still underway, will run into a few crore rupees.

When the plan is implemented, Mumbai will be the first Indian city to have its entire water supply network running on automatic valves. However, he adds, the manual system will not be dismantled.