10% water cut across Mumbai from today

Richa Pinto / TNN / Updated: Nov 15, 2018, 03:54 IST

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Mumbai will see a 10% water cut from Thursday as the BMC tabled information on the rationing of supply in Wednesday's civic standing committee meeting. While the 10% cut will be in quantum of water supplied, there will be a 15% cut in supply timings. So if a household gets water for 60 minutes, the supply will now be for 51 minutes. BMC said the cut will remain in effect until the rains arrive in 2019, though it has decided to review water stock in the seven lakes every month.

The BMC, in its statement tabled before the committee, stated that the quantum of water in the lakes is inadequate for supply until next year's monsoon, and they may therefore have to use the reserve stock.

With the water cut now in place across the city owing to shortage in the lakes, it is necessary that along with the BMC, we the citizens too do our bit to conserve water and regulate its use so that the percentage of the cut does not go further up after every monthly review that the civic body will undertake. Avoiding waste and stringent self-regulation is a must. The municipal corporation must however prevent theft of water, which still continues.

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In order to ensure the least amount of reserve stock is used, the cut has been proposed for all residential, commercial and industrial premises. The cut will also be imposed for all the villages in Thane, Bhiwandi and Kalyan which receive BMC water.
The catchment-area lakes have three levels: one of live storage, the other of reserve stock and third with dead stock. When the lakes by the end of monsoon (September 30) have 100% stock, the city can be provided adequate water for the rest of the year from the live storage level. But since stock now is 15% less than what it was last year at this time, there will be a need to use water from the reserve stock as well.

This year, the lakes received good rain in June and July but August and September were relatively dry. The BMC at present supplies 3,800 MLD of water to Mumbai daily even as the city needs 4,200 MLD every day. On November 14, the total water stock in all lakes stood at 10.95 lakh million litres, 75.6% of the total stocks; on the same day last year, the stock was 13.17 lakh million litres, 91.9% of total stock.
At the civic meeting on Wednesday, members of the opposition party raised a stink over why information on the water cut was tabled before them in a meeting that was anyway going to be adjourned for the day. But civic sources said the tabling was only for the committee's information.
BJP corporator and party leader Manoj Kotak said the BMC should start thinking of ways to augment the city's water supply especially considering the increasing population.

About the Author

Richa Pinto

Richa Pinto is a special correspondent with The Times of India. She covers urban governance & climate change issues. With over a decade of experience in field reporting, she has written extensively on various civic issues affecting Mumbaikars. She graduated in -journalism from the prestigious Mumbai-based St Xavier's College and later pursued a three-year Law degree (L.L.B.) with the University of Mumbai. She regularly tweets about all things that matter to Mumbai on-- @richapintoi.

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