After 6 years, 24X7 water supply reaches only 15% houses

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) 24X7 water supply scheme completed six years on March 1. As per data available with the civic body, only 15% houses are getting water round the clock and water losses are pegged at a whopping 60%.
When launched in 2012, the 24X7 scheme was to bring water to 3.20 lakh houses and bring down losses to 15%. The 387.86 crore project sanctioned by the central government under the JNNURM scheme is being implemented by private operator Orange City Water Private Limited (OCW).

As per the data, only 48,000 houses are getting 24X7 water supply. As against water supply of 640 million litres per day (MLD), only 260 MLD is being billed. The status of 380 MLD is not known.

The government had set NMC a target to complete the project on March 31, 2014. And, as per the NMC’s deadline, the OCW was supposed to finish the project by March 1, 2017.

Complaints related to water crisis, contamination and unequal distribution are still prevailing in all parts of the city. The NMC also continues to supply water through tankers in many parts of the city.

So far, Rs329 crore has been spent on the project.

NMC official told TOI that the project got delayed due to several reasons. “We did not get any funds from the government for one and a half years (2016 and 2017). Now, the NMC has been asked to bear more share in the project,” he said.

According to an OCW spokesperson, 5.3 lakh population (81,538 houses) in 16 localities (command areas) are getting 24X7 water supply.

“We started water supply to 250 areas that were not getting water before March 2012 and it benefited around 1.80 lakh people. Water supply changed from alternate days to daily in 108 outer areas taking total beneficiaries to 1.70 lakh people. 217 low water pressure areas were converted into pressurized supply areas benefiting 6.30 lakh people. Measures like plugging leakages and repairing pipe lines along with laying new ones have solved these problems,” he said.

The spokesperson added that the water losses do not mean it is not reaching the houses. “Water reaches the consumers’ taps but remains unaccounted for various reasons like illegal connections, un-metered connections, meter not on site, average meter reading connections etc,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Nagpur Environmental Services Limited, which was to take a decision on replacing stolen meters, postponed its meeting scheduled for Tuesday.