The Indian Express   08.08.2012

Officials asked to address complaints of water shortage

Following a flood of complaints from fag-end consumers of water about extreme scarcity of water due to the 10 per cent water cut, top civic officials have asked their hydraulic engineering staff to carry out valve operations properly.

Consumers at the fag-end of water supply networks have been largely bearing the brunt of the water cut due to improper valve operations along the water pipelines.A senior engineer in the department said ward level engineers tend to reduce only the time of supply and not the pressure.

“When a cut is imposed, along with the time of supply, the pressure of supply also has to be reduced so that its effect is felt evenly across the network. Ward level engineers have been reducing only the supply time from the reservoir outlets due to which the first 70 per cent of consumers are not facing any water cut while the remaining 30 per cent are experiencing up to 50 per cent cuts,” he said.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Jalota held a review meeting on Tuesday wherein all junior level engineers were asked to prepare a thorough plan on valve operations to avoid faulty distribution of water.

“The department has also been directed to start preparing a water contingency plan for the period between October this year to May next year. If the rain is not satisfactory this monsoon, we will need to have a plan ready on how to optimize the use of water during this period,” said Jalota.