The civic body also has sealed water connections to 16 swimming pools that use municipal water
Mumbai : The BMC has made a ‘fundamental change’ in its water cut policy. The civic body will now resort to 15 per cent water cut bringing in some relief for the water-starved population living in its jurisdiction. Earlier it had announced 20 per cent cut in the time duration of water supply, instead of quantity.
However, two weeks after implementation of the policy, BMC realised that a cut in the time of water supply did not result actually in 15 per cent cut in quantity of water uniformly throughout Mumbai. As a result, slum areas, which receive low water pressure, got less quantity in comparison to other areas. Also, it has dished out decision making authority to ward officers, who can decide on the amount of time water supply will be cut.
A dry monsoon has led to 32 per cent shortage in water this year for Mumbai. The BMC is banking on the remaining 15 days of September for rains to bring some relief and help it to tackle the reigning water shortage in the metropolis.
Sanjay Mukherjee, Additional Municipal Commissioner said, “Even thought the situation may improve, our planning is based on current levels of water available.” Meanwhile, BMC has taken measures for water conservation. It has identified 3775 leakages of which it has fixed 3704. It has identified 431 unauthorised connections of which 428 have been sealed and 31 unauthorised pumps were sealed.
It has sealed water connections to 16 swimming pools that use municipal water. It has cut water supply to 37 air conditioning units in commercial complexes. This will remain effective until the water reserves in the city are filled with rainwater.
It has adopted a proactive method to deal with water leakages. Instead of tending to complaints, the civic body has appointed teams which will look for leakages in water pipelines and fix them.
[alert type=”e.g. warning, danger, success, info” title=””]At present there’s 9,96,492 million litres of water in Mumbai’s seven lakes. Whereas this time last year, there was 14,25,182 million litres of water in the 7 lakes. It barely rained around the lakes. Vihar and Tulsi lakes saw 1 mm of rainfall on after the water cut was announced. As of September 15 this year Colaba received 1574mm of rainfall and Santacruz received 1764 mm. However, until September 15 last year, Colaba had received 2089 mm and Santacruz had received 2271 mm of rainfall.[/alert]
