Dinesh Kamath's news item 'NMMC and water supply' that was published in Newsband

NMMC and water supply

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has found that water is being misused in the city in a big way. Hence it has decided to penalize those found wasting or misusing potable water. NMMC will appoint its officials to keep a watch and report those cases where water is misused.

NMMC has taken this step after receiving complaints from the residents about wastage of water taking place at many places. According to the complaints the water that is meant for drinking were being used for other purpose.

There are many residents in the city who receive just two-hour water supply. Some are lucky enough to receive much more supply of water and they don’t hesitate to use this water indiscriminately and for washing vehicles and for watering gardens.

The NMMC supplies drinking water to the entire city through the existing supply system like pipelines and service reservoirs. This water is being used by many for wrong purposes. Hence NMMC has appointed officials to catch hold of and penalize such residents who waste the potable water. Also bulk domestic meters have been installed at some residences to prevent wastage of water. Notices will be issued to those people in whose residences water had overflowed from the safety tank or potable water is being misused. Some officials have been appointed to find out where there is leakage of water and to plug or repair any leaking pipeline.

It is a good thing that NMMC is keeping a watch on the residents to see to it that they don’t waste drinking water. But sometimes NMMC itself is found on the wrong. For example, a few days back, after water cut-off on a certain day, the residents of Turbhe discovered that the water which was supplied to them by NMMC had a foul smell. Now whose fault is this? NMMC authorities, instead of penalizing the officials responsible for this defended them by saying that the water had foul smell only for a short time because the pipes were being cleaned.

But NMMC should not have started supplying water while the pipes were in the process of being cleaned. So the fault here lies with NMMC. The burst of dirty water while the pipes were being cleaned could have created severe health problems among the residents had they consumed the contaminated water.  

It is true that the residents of the city should be careful while using the water. So also NMMC should do the job of water-supplying to the city in most responsible manner.