City to face 10 per cent water cut

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday clarified that the city will face 10 per cent water cut in May and there will be no additional cuts.

Earlier it was reported  that the civic body might impose additional five per cent water cut was made as the water stock in the five dams managed by BMC was dipping. However, as the BMC has now got state government’s nod to use 1,70,000 million litres of water from its reserved stock, there will be no additional water cuts, said a BMC official.

“Mumbai will have only 10 percent water cut as announced in November 2018. BMC has got permission to use water from state government managed dams 70,000 million litres from Upper Vaitarna and 1,00,000 million litres from Bhatsa.

The water stock in BMC managed dams as of Saturday was 2,38,808 million litres which is only 17 per cent of its capacity,” said a senior BMC officer.

BMC provides 3,550 million litres of water to Mumbai daily. After 10 per cent water cut, the city gets 3,195 litres water daily. BMC claimed with the water cut strategy and usage of reserved stock, there is sufficient water for Mumbai till July 31.

The five BMC owned dams that supply water to Mumbai are Middle Vaitarna, Modak Sagar, Tansa, Vihar and Tulsi, while the state manages Upper Vaitarna and Bhatsa. The water stock in BMC dams this year is only 17 per cent of total capacity due to inadequate rainfall. While, in 2017 and 2018, the water stock was over 29 percent during this period.

Previously, the BMC had to draw water from the reserved stock was in 2016 due to poor rainfall in 2015. Experts said that instead of only building dams, BMC should also focus on measures like rain water harvesting.

Review meeting for pre-monsoon work held in city

Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta conducted a review meeting Saturday on various pre-monsoon works carried out by the civic body such as desilting of nullahs, installation of dewatering pumps to avoid flooding, trimming of dangerous trees, precautions to avoid illness etc. However, the meeting stressed on completing the desilting of nullahs before the monsoon.

The storm water drains (SWD) department informed that while around 44 per cent of the desilting of major nullahs including the Mithi river had been completed, only 20 per cent of the desilting of minor nullahs had been carried out. The commissioner ordered ward officers to communicate with the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) and Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) not to dump any construction debris of the metro work in the nullahs which could choke water drainage. There will also be a special meeting held by the additional municipal commissioner (projects), Pravin Darade, with the MMRDA regarding the same.

While the BMC has already started trimming trees before the monsoon, on the desilting of nullahs, the civic body is already facing a lot of flak for lagging behind schedule.  Mumbai has 276km of major drains including the Mithi river and 438 kms of minor drains.

Out of the 334,762 tonnes of silt in major drains, only 148,664 tonnes has been removed so far. Whereas in the minor drains, only 41,925 tonnes out of the total 206,185 tonnes of silt has been removed.