The Times of India 14.12.2010
PMC invites bids for water supply scheme
PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation has initiated steps to involve a private consultant/ firm to redesign the city's water supply system.
The civic body on Sunday floated a tender seeking consultants or firms who would do the network analysis, take corrective measures such as leak detection, system rehabilitation and a water audit, flow measurement, systems reengineering and network rehabilitation and suggest cost-effective measures to meet the city's water demand for the next 30 years.
It would address the disparity in water to the city where the central parts get plenty of water while the fringe areas reel under scarcity. The bidders would need to be from the urban water sector with adequate national or international experience in designing water supply.
Puneites receive 314 litre per capita per day (LPCD) drinking water as against the set norms of 150 LPCD. The tender notice states that, "The PMC during 2009-10 consumed 14.64 TMC water i.e a demand of 314 LPCD as against the 150 LPCD of the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) norms. In spite of high average consumption of water per head, certain areas received very low and inequitable water supply due to design deficiencies in the overall water supply system, especially in the old distribution networks."
"The consultant/firm is expected to prepare a comprehensive detailed project plan (DPR) suggesting interalia system to provide 150 lpcd (domestic consumption) water supply for the city's population," the notice said.
Municipal commissioner Mahesh Zagade's proposal to introduce a metered water supply system for household consumers (domestic supply) is pending before the standing committee. Based on the condition that the cost of service and its recovery should also be equal under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the Union government has set the 24-hour water supply norm and also installing meters for consumers in Pune.
The civic administration has repeatedly attempted to introduce the metered water billing system to calculate water tax, but the PMC general body had scrapped it for domestic users from April 1, 2000, and instead billed users on a system based on the Annual Rateable Value (ARV) of their property.
Zagade's proposal has said that water meters should be made compulsory as per the JNNURM reforms. The proposal states that 150 litres of water will be provided per head and a five-member family will be considered as a unit. If a family uses 150 litres water per head (750 litres in total) no extra charges will be imposed and the existing water rates will be charged. Rs 33 will be charged for every additional 1,000 litres.
Earlier, Zagade had tabled a proposal before the standing committee submitted by Tata Consultants on how to address, augment and execute the water supply needs. The firm sought Rs 37 crore as fees. The standing committee members opposed the proposal saying that the fees were excessive and sent it back to the civic administration.
