Saturday, March 13, 2010

Fwd: Is BMC causing the water shortage in Mumbai?



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <info@karmayog.org>
Date: Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 3:27 PM
Subject: Is BMC causing the water shortage in Mumbai?
To: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com


An article in today's paper mentions that  BMC has decided to make municipal water available for public swimming pools, while continuing to impose water cuts on citizens. (See DNA Mumbai issue, pg. 2, dated 13-03-10)

Elsewhere, the BMC is daily granting licences and permissions to new buildings and complexes that provide private swimming pools with each apartment. A new project in Tardeo for 3 and 4 bedroom apartments with 180 units in the building advertises a private pool with each apartment - this would require a minimum of 15,000 litres of water per private pool (assuming a pool 5 feet deep of size 10' X 10').

BMC currently provides 90 litres of water per person, per day, and is reducing this to 45 litres for new societies, while continuing to exhort citizens to save water and use water carefully.

Instead of adopting water-saving policies and plans, and restricting water-use to essential functions like drinking, the BMC seeks to adopt expensive and complex schemes like de-salination (estimated to cost Rs. 800 crore) and the Midle Vaitarna Project (estimated to cost Rs.1800 crore).

What suggestions can we give to BMC to solve Mumbai's water crisis?

Some examples:
- Cost of water for any use other than residential to be restricted and charged at higher rates than currently applicable
- Inspection of housing societies and premises, and levy of charges for premises with individual storage tanks and booster pumps
- Levy of fines on all premises (public and private) that have leaking taps and over-flowing tanks
- etc.

Do respond to this discussion at
http://www.karmayog.org/messages/message.aspx?id=2416

 




--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

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