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Civic body to monitor your daily water supply…….Sujit Mahamulkar
Soon, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) would know the exact amount of water you receive at home. To plug water leakage and theft, the civic body will install flow metres on various reservoirs and pipelines under the new water management system. By next year, the BMC would know the exact amount of water that end users consume and the amount that is wasted via leakage and theft.
In the first phase of the project, the civic body will install about 300 flow metres at the cost of Rs 160 crore, of which over 150 have already been installed at 30 reservoirs and on few water mains. “The remaining work will be completed in the next three months up to January 2011, and in a year, every household would come under the BMC scanner, after installation of flow metres,” said Rahul Shewale, chairman of the civic standing committee.
As per the civic water department, more than 20% water that is supplied to the city on a daily basis is lost to theft and leaks. In the past one year, the BMC has repaired more than 35,000 leaks and has also accepted that there is more work to be done.
The civic body supplies 3,350 million litre daily (mld) water, while over 700 mld is wasted to leaks and theft.
The second phase of the project will involve the civic body fixing flow metres for bulk consumers and in the third phase, all 3.5 lakh residential consumers will be monitored with help of flow meters.
The flow metres would also help improve the water distribution system, which has been disturbed since a month. Two weeks ago, city corporators had decided to study the water distribution system in Mumbai and make recommendations for equitable water supply as per the population density in different wards.
A nine-member sub-committee, headed by Shewale, undertook the study. However, complaints about water shortage continued to pour in from certain parts of the city. The worst affected areas are those at the tail end of the distribution system.
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