The Central Railway (CR) has finally agreed to supply half of its water from its Dighe dam for Thane after Avinash Jadhav, the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena’s (MNS) Thane city president, wrote a letter
The Central Railway (CR) has finally agreed to supply half of its water from its Dighe dam for Thane after Avinash Jadhav, the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena’s (MNS) Thane city president, wrote a letter to the PMO for help. Thanekars in some areas have been facing water cuts of up to 60-hours per week.
“Currently Thane needs 10 million litres of water per day (MLD) overall,” said Mr Jadhav. He had raised the issue with Thane municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal, after the CR had agreed to provide part of the water from the Dam to the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC). CR’s decision to provide water to NMMC had sparked outrage among Thane residents as well as its public representatives, as Thane itself is reeling from water shortage. “Around eight days ago I wrote to the PMO as well Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu asking as to why this kind of partiality was being done. I am grateful to the railways for agreeing to supply water to us,” Mr Jadhav added.
The suburb of Diva, which too falls under the Thane Municipal Corporation, has seen a sharp increase of migration to the area in the past five years alone, and needs 2 MLD of water. Mr Jadhav said this would translate into water for each home to up to 20 minutes per day. “Diva is seeing one of the worst water crunches in the history of Mumbai, 2 MLD is the current minimum requirement,” he said. Mr Jadhav also referred to the Indian Metrological Department’s predictionthat the city would be getting a decent amount of rainfall in the coming monsoon.
CR general manager Mr Sunil Kumar Sood said, “We have permitted NMMC to lift water from our railway dam at Dighe for next three months”.
Mr Sood and Mr Jaiswal are to visit the dam on Monday to figure out the modalities of the water supply issue.
