The Hindu    17.08.2012

Water board to account for every drop

The Water Board has decided to assess the unaccounted for water supplied to consumers in a bid to plug the revenue loss. The Alwal section comprising 40,000 households has been taken up as a pilot project.

ASCI roped in

Interestingly this area has only 10,000 Consumer Account Numbers (CANs) and the Board has no idea whether the rest of the consumers have proper connections or not.

The Administrative College of India (ASCI), which has been entrusted the job, has taken up survey of the Alwal section.

Eight teams are working on the project mapping each household with GPS coordinators. The survey will check for CANS, illegal connections and also gather socio-economic data.

By September end the survey is expected to be completed. Authorities are also in the process of identifying an area in the core city for this exercise.

Entire city to be covered

“The entire city will be covered in a phased manner. Once the data is ready we will initiate action against the illegal connections,” said G.S. Panda Das, executive director, Water Board.

In the State capital the water loss is a shocking 34 to 40 per cent although only 15 per cent is permissible as per norms. At present the Board supplies 340 mgd water but it is able to account for only 170 mgd. There is simply no trace of where the remaining water goes. According to rough estimates PSPs consume about 15 mgd, paid and free tankers account for 5 mgd, about 6 mgd goes to charity connections. The present exercise is to bring the unaccounted water into the system and bill for the entire water supplied.

The Indian Express  16.08.2012

BMC to take a call on cloud seeding by Sept

To go ahead only if water in lakes fails to touch 12 lakh million litre-mark

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to conduct a ‘cloud seeding’ exercise in the city and its suburbs only if the total availability of water in the lakes supplying water to the city fail to reach 12 lakh million litres by the first week of September. The maximum capacity of the six lakes is about 13.5 lakh million litres.

Cloud seeding is a process by which rain is induced through spraying of silver iodide crystals to stimulate precipitation.So far, conflicting signals have emanated from the BMC with officials not giving a clear picture if cloud seeding would be required to induce artificial rain in catchment areas of the lakes.

Additional municipal commissioner Rajiv Jalota said that a stock of 12 lakh million litres is considered comfortable to last till the next monsoon.“The availability of water as on August 14 is 8,18,589 million litres compared with 9,65,975 million litres on the same day last year. We will observe the intensity and pattern of rainfall during the remaining days of August. If the total availability by September is not close to 12 lakh million litres, then we will have to go ahead with cloud seeding,” said Jalota.

Meanwhile, the final feasibility report submitted to the civic body by the Israeli firm Mekorot was sent back by the BMC as it lacked proper financial detailing. “The technical aspect seemed satisfactory, but the financial aspect seemed incomplete since they had not included the cost of the plane required to carry out cloud seeding. Once they re-submit the report, it will be sent to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune for their go ahead,” said hydraulic engineer Ramesh Bambale. On August 9, Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte said that as per the current monsoon scenario, there was no need to carry out cloud seeding as of now. Despite the failure of the cloud seeding experiment in 2009, the BMC was forced to consider the exercise following pressure from corporators. Bangalore-based Agni Aviation had carried out the exercise in 2009 charging Rs 8 crore, but it failed to yield the desired results.