WD News: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has launched action against residents using excess water.
It has served notices to over 2,500 houses for using water far more than the prescribed limit of 150 litres per person every day for drinking and domestic use. The quota has been decided by the water resources authority based on availability and demand. In reality, some houses were found using water four times more than the prescribed quota.
Pune needs around 1,600 MLD (Million Litres per Day) of water. Estimating the city population to be more than 5.5 million, PMC had recently sought 20.34 TMC (Thousand Million Cubic feet) of water from the water resources department of Maharashtra government to meet the growing annual demand. However, the state water resources department has fixed the quota at 12.41 TMC.
To deal with the issue of providing equitable supply of water to all areas, PMC has undertaken the ambitious Rs 2,100-crore 24×7 project, which mandates installing water metres in each housing society. Now, these meters are showing excess use of water by some residents.
Data compiled and collated by the state’s water resources department in 2015 suggested that the annual reservation for drinking water in urban areas of Maharashtra is 4,843 million cubic metres against 1,033 million cubic metres in rural areas. So, urban areas can access 4.7 times more drinking water than the rural belt from these water sources when the urban-rural population is evenly divided by now. The inequity is policy driven and flows from norms set by the government. Urban areas are entitled to 135-150 litres of water per person per day, depending on the population. Rural areas are entitled to just 40-70 litres per person per day.
However, within cities, such as Pune, there is marked inequality with certain areas getting more water than the rest and citizens indulging in wasting it when others are deprived even drinking water. To bridge the gap, PMC needs to expedite the 24×7 water project and bring discipline to areas where water usage is high.
Source: Hindustan Times. Image Courtesy: Punekar News
