Kolkata: 30 percent of KMC water wasted daily

A recent survey by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation said of the 450 million gallon filtered water produced by the KMC every day at its three major treatment plants, nearly thirty per cent is wasted.

After taking up augmentation and overhaul of Palta Water Treatment plant and Garden Reach Waterworks, the KMC had planned in 2015 to introduce 24 X 7 water supply system in several parts of North, Central and South Kolkata.

The civic body had planned to achieve the target by 2020. But four years later a feedback from the area suggests that the mission would be accomplished only after plugging holes in water distribution network and arresting the huge wastage of filtered water.

Taking proper steps to arrest the wastage is a major condition set by the Asian Development Bank before it releases funds for any overhaul of Kolkata's water supply system.

'The principal hurdle before us in securing significant fund from the ADB is wastage of filtered water. Once we develop a mechanism to plug the holes, we will seek a Rs 500 crore soft loan from ADB which will help in introducing a round-the-clock water supply,' a local daily quoted a KMC official as saying.

According to the KMC's water supply department at least 30 per cent of the total filtered water production is wasted daily. The two major sources are leakage in age-old water pipelines and roadside water taps.

According to the department at least ten per cent of the filtered water produced in a day is wasted through 17,000 taps in the city. Of these taps only a portion caters to water requirements of slums.

Besides, there is huge wastage of potable water at households across the city. At least 1.5 million people in the city depend on ground water which is unsafe because of arsenic threat arising out of depletion in water level.

'Solution perhaps lies in installing water meters in houses and introducing nominal fees to make users responsible,' KMC officials were quoted by the newspaper.