Festivals of water wastage!

Festivals of water wastage!

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 08:19 AM IST
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Call it the City of the 21st century, Modern City, City of IT Parks,. The good news is that Navi Mumbai gets the highest per capita supply of drinking water at 240 litres a day against the national average of 135 litres per day. But the sad news is that the city seems to take pride in wasting water. Adivashi has been raising voice against criminal wastage of drinking water like by using it for washing vehicles and walls. Now NMMC has stepped up its campaign against this wastage though the Morbe dam, owned by the civic body, has enough water to quench the city’s thirst till September 2015.

“This does not mean that we just use it indiscriminately. What will you do if it doesn’t rain well next year or in the following year,” a civic official asks reminding the people of the El Nino factor. One may wonder as to why and how NMMC has woken up to the alarming situation, suddenly now. Here is the answer – water consumption goes up by a whopping ten per cent during festivals. It is whopping because we cry hoarse when the civic body cuts supply by 10%.

The city needs to inculcate discipline and use water judiciously. To twist the adage that is as old as water itself, we need to save it for the dry day.

Navi Mumbai is lucky to get 240 litres of water per head, daily as the figures for the neighbouring areas are: Mumbai – 175, Kalyan-Dombivai 170, Thane – 155 and Ulhasnagar – 145. Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayander get less one third of water what Navi Mumbai people get!

Navi Mumbai is a young city as compared to other urban areas and the rate of literacy here is almost hundred per cent. Does education bring knowledge and awareness of civic sense? That is a million liter question that Navi Mumbai has to answer.

From water wastage to water logging that we discussed last week. NMMC has begun to repair the Vashi bus depot surface and one hopes that the civic officials do visit the place and attend to several other problems faced by commuters.

Readers of this column must be familiar with the menace of dumping mafia creating in the City. Construction waste from neighbouring Mumbai and Thane areas is being recklessly dumped in Navi Mumbai repeatedly, despite action by NMMC’s flying squad to check the menace. From Seawoods Estates to Airoli, dumpers have been zooming in and out and the seizure of some vehicles by NMMC proved to be mere cosmetic.

A local media report suggests that as much as 4,800 tonnes of debris have been dumped on Navi Mumbai municipal areas during the last financial year alone. Isn’t it high time that NMMC impresses upon BMC and TMC to provide for dumping in their respective cities rather than allowing the mafia to play havoc with the environment here. The indiscriminate dumping is killing the mangroves in the creek.

A formal complaint to the environment ministry is also a must. One does not have to worry about the model code of conduct for initiating drastic actions in such alarming situations. Else, NMMC will be burdened with heavy expenditure in clearing the rubble from the creek.

It also poses the danger of mushrooming of slums on such privately reclaimed land. Jaago NMMC, Jaago!

Come elections, politicians find all kinds of ways to woo voters. Now we hear that the self-help group’s help is being sought by the parties. The groups, mostly run by women, are a good target.

The NMMC area alone – enveloping the twin assembly constituencies of Belapur and Airoli – has 4,500 such groups with over a lakh of women as members which can roughly account for at least four lakh voters.

Politicians, elected representatives and social workers need to look at serious problems like sanitation workers not getting paid their wages for over two months, rather than worrying about vote banks. Guardian Minister Ganesh Naik may have promised permanent jobs to all contract labourers, but who is responsible if the contractors do not pay wages to the workers? As it is, these labourers are paid meager salaries and on top of that they don’t get their legitimate money in time.

And the city expects them to toil and keep the streets clean.

The winds of political changes continue to blow across the city as Panvel Congress leaders, former MP Ramsheth Thakur and his son Prashant Thakur, MLA, moved over to the BJP. Much like in Belapur and Airoli, the equations are set to change even Uran and Panvel constituencies. Watch this space as we inch towards the October 15 D-Day.

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This is the 90th in a series on Navi Mumbai by veteran media professional B N Kumar, a long time resident of Mumbai’s twin city. He can be contacted at: mailbnk@gmail.com

B N Kumar

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