The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) pilot project to improve the city’s water supply, which was kickstarted in the H (west) and T wards, has hit a roadblock, as the consultants employed for
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) pilot project to improve the city’s water supply, which was kickstarted in the H (west) and T wards, has hit a roadblock, as the consultants employed for the project have demanded an additional supply of 50 million litres of water per day for each ward, a feat impossible to achieve in any city.
While the civic body will not be able to supply this additional water, it has given the consultant one month’s time to complete the project as per the original terms of the contract. If the outcome of the project is satisfactory, the civic body will take a call on whether to start the Water Distribution Improvement Project (WDIP) in all municipal wards, or to scrap the contract with the current consultant and redo the entire project, including wards K (west) and T. As per the initial plan, the project was to start in two new wards in the city’s suburbs by mid-April.
A senior civic official associated with the project said, “The purpose of the project is to achieve 100 per cent water supply to all areas 24X7. We want to achieve this by tapping about 17 per cent to 18 per cent leakages in water supply. Supplying additional water to each ward to meet the demands of the project basically defeats its purpose.”
Additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Mukharji said, “The project is running on schedule right now and is nearing completion in the two pilot wards, save some glitches. After we intimated the consultant that we cannot supply the additional 50 MLD of water, he has carried on with the work as per the original contract. We have not decided whether to have the same consultant work in all wards. The decision is subject to present performance.”
The entire WDIP is expected to span over five years in the city, with the aim of achieving 100 per cent water supply in the city and its suburbs, reaching the slums that do not have household water connections, detecting existing leakages and monitoring the network by geo-mapping underground pipelines.
