Mumbaikars brace yourself as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed setting a daily limit for how much water every household uses. The BMC will charge more money if citizens exceed that limit.
According to the Hindustan Times, currently, non-slum areas get 150 litres of water per person per day, while slums get a meagre 45 litres per person per day. These allotments, however, are no limits. In 2016, several MLAs raised the issue of inequitable water distribution in different areas of the city. They pointed out how the island city gets more water supply even though its population is far lower than the eastern and extended western suburbs (between Goregaon and Dahisar).
After which, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had asked the BMC to form a committee to study problems in water distribution across Mumbai. After two years, the BMC committee has filed its report, ‘Towards Equitable and 24x7 Water Supply for Greater Mumbai’, which suggests 21 measures, for the short-and-long-term, to ensure all homes in Mumbai get the same amount of water, for the same amount of time and at the same pressure.
Municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi told the leading daily, "The BMC will propose volumetric rates attached to each flat, instead of water metres for the entire building. This way, a higher rate will be applied to individual flat-owners who are consuming water above the limit.” The committee recommended preventing the loss of water to theft and leakages, monitoring bulk consumers of water such as hotels and charging them proportionately, replacing old pipelines, harvesting rainwater, recycling, and using groundwater.
