Mumbai: Despite several reminders and formal meetings, seeking restoration of their allotted quota for over nine years, the BMC is yet to restore 1.5 million litres per day (MLD) to the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC).
After the Zilla Parishad (Thane) commissioned a water scheme for the erstwhile villages in Mira-Bhayandar in 1967, the BMC had agreed to supply 2.5MLD water, apart from agreeing to shoulder the responsibility of supplying to various industrial establishments on the highway and areas falling under the MIDC.
Services never resumed after major breakdown
The arrangements worked for nearly four decades, but the services came to a screeching halt and never resumed again after a major breakdown owing to road widening work. When the logjam failed to reach its logical end, the MBMC even threatened to snap water supply to all MHADA tenements.
However, after an in-principle approval by the BMC to amplify the twin-city’s supply by 1.5MLD on January 22, 2014, the MBMC facilitated water connections to new MHADA settlements. Subsequently, the MBMC not only spent ₹60 lakh as their contribution towards laying new water supply lines, but also deposited ₹22.2 lakh towards security deposit for cross connections in May 2015.
In communication with the BMC
Executive engineer Sharad Nanegaonkar said, “Recently, the BMC has started giving 0.4MLD as against the allotted quota of 1.5MLD. We are in communication with our BMC counterparts to release the full quota.”
As against the requirement of over 225 MLD, the twin-city has an allotted 221 MLD, provided jointly by the MIDC (135 MLD) and STEM (86 MLD) water supply authority. However, the actual supply continues to hover below 200 MLD as Mira-Bhayandar is still losing a huge quantity of potable water in transit on a daily basis owing to leakages, unaccounted supply and theft.
