The Times of India 12.08.2010
City reeling under acute water crisis
KANPUR: The water crisis in the Industrial City is going from bad to worse.
Kanpur requires 520 mld of water to meet its every day requirements. But it is facing a deficit of nearly 110 mld water.
The city gets 10 mld of water through Gujaini plant, 200 mld is supplied from Bhaironghat plant, 60 mld comes from lower Ganga canal plant, 35 mld from Ganga barrage, while hand pumps and other sources provide 120 mld water.
The Jal Nigam and Jal Sansthan officials have been claiming that the situation is improving slowly but long queues of people with buckets can still be seen at most handpumps.
While the water crisis has been prevailing in the city from quite a long time, the officials of Jal Sansthan and Jal Nigam have been playing the blame game. The urban local body (Jal Sansthan) passes the buck to Jal Nigam, which cites Jal Nigam and paucity of funds as main reasons behind the water crisis.
Blaming the laxity of Jal Nigam officials, the general manager of Jal Sansthan, Ratan Lal, said, "The water projects under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) promise to permanently solve the water crisis in the city.
Presently, the Ganga barrage plant, which is supplying 35 mld of water, can provide 190 mld of water, but due to inadequate infrastructure, it is not functioning with its full capacity.
The existing 200 mld water treatment plant that has been supplying only 35 mld of water was handed over to Jal Santhan in 1995. This treatment plant was supposed to cater to the needs of approximately seven lakh people residing in areas like Vikas Nagar, Nawabganj, Kalyanpur, Sharda Nagar, Azad Nagar, but presently, it is serving only a handful of localities. The reason is inappropriate planning and absence of water pipelines in various areas.
Questions are also being raised over the other two 200-mld treatment plants at Ganga barrage which have been constructed under the JNNURM projects.
Notably, the projects, entailing a cost of around Rs 650 crore, were divided into two phases.
Under the phase I, it was planned to improve the water supply in inner areas of the Old City.
So it was decided to have a 200-mld water treatment plant, 38 clean water reservoirs and pumping heads, 14 overhead tanks and 700 kms of water pipelines in the area. But the work is going at snail's pace.
Under phase II, it was planned to establish a 200 mld and a 28.5 mld water treatment plants, 38 water reservoirs and 32 overhead tanks etc in the remaining areas.
The phase I project is scheduled to be completed by December 2010 and phase II project by 2012.
However, the incharge of water supply project, Jal Nigam, D C Gupta said, "The phase I projects cannot be completed by 2010 due to insufficient funds. Both the projects have commenced, but due to paucity of funds, it is impossible to predict when the water problem will be solved."
