Nagpur: In view of the increased demand for water due to the rise in temperatures, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has increased the supply to the city by almost 30MLD (million litres per day).
A senior official from NMC’s water works department told TOI that with the temperature hovering around 44 degree Celsius mark, the water supply has been increased from 650MLD to 680MLD to meet the additional demand.
On an average, the NMC supplies around 640-650MLD water to the city. Of this, 190MLD comes from Kanhan river while the rest is pumped from Pench, the official said. “The supply has been increased in the last four days,” said the official.
The official said NMC is also supplying water through 273 tankers. The civic body has deployed 213 tankers for non-network areas while private operator Orange City Water has deployed 60. The tankers are making around 2,184 trips a day and supplying almost 10.28 lakh litres water per day.
According to the available data, the situation is grave in areas like Satranjipura, Ashi Nagar, Lakadganj and Nehru Nagar zones where each tanker is is making eight trips daily.
The department has deployed 95 tankers for Ashi Nagar and Satranjipura zones having many non-network areas. For Lakadganj, 42 tankers have been deployed to meet water requirement in the east Nagpur localities.
Many non-network areas under the Nehru Nagar zone too were facing water crisis. Here NMC has pressed 37 tankers.
Many big residential societies have been pressing private tankers into service to meet their water needs. “Come summers, water starts flowing at very low pressure. This happens when the demand for water in our society increases. We then purchase water from private tanker operators,” said Rahul Sahare, a resident of Jaripatka.
In the last fortnight, NMC had witnessed many morchas over the water crisis. Not only Congress netas but even former corporators from BJP, which ruled the civic body for 15 years straight, too took out a morcha to NMC over water crisis.
Most of the people’s representatives complained of no water, low pressure and contaminated supply.
As temperatures start rising, many people reportedly use booster pumps to draw additional water. To curb this, OCW-NMC have formed a joint flying squad to detect such pumps. The team has seized 40 booster pumps in its drive across the city. As per the data obtained from OCW, the highest number of booster pumps were seized from Ashi Nagar zone (20), 11 in Nehru Nagar, six in Dharampeth zone, two in Dhantoli and one under Laxmi Nagar zone.
