Indian Express 13.01.2010
Water 7 days a week
Mumbaikars might not have to face the proposed 100 per cent water cut once a week. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has held back the move for the time being, hoping the state government will bail it out by providing additional water if the crisis worsens during the summer.
At a meeting on Monday at the Mayor’s bungalow among Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray, Mayor Shraddha Jadhav, the commissioner and officials from the hydraulic engineer’s department, the BMC decided it would wait for the government’s final decision.
“We have sought extra water from the Bhatsa and Upper Vaitarna dams in view of poor rainfall and the state irrigation department is working out the nitty-gritty. Till then we will hold back the no water for a day experiment,” commissioner Swadhin Kshatriya said.
In a recent meeting with Chief Secretary J P Dange, the water resources department had assured it would help the BMC with additional water in April and May. The decision on how much water and when is expected soon. Kshatriya said if the state provides enough, it would increase the stock in the dams and there would be no need to ration water.
Last month, the civic body had announced cyclical, 100-per-cent water cuts for a day a week, as an experiment for two weeks from the second week of January. It was proposed that the city’s water network would be divided into seven zones (two in the island city, two in the western suburbs and three in the eastern suburbs) and supply would be cut off totally to each zone on a cyclic pattern. Officials said the experiment was necessary if the existing available water has to last till the monsoon arrives
The decision faced political opposition, not only from the Congress-NCP but also from Sena-BJP corporators. Due to a weak, delayed monsoon, supply has already been cut 15 per cent and corporators said there was need to create awareness among Mumbaikars before such a drastic scheme
