Fadnavis gives nod to use Totladoh dam dead stock

Nagpur: In a major relief for Nagpurians to overcome water crisis, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday gave in-principle nod to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation to use 30 million meter cube (mmc) water from Totladoh reservoir’s dead stock.
The development came after mayor Nanda Jichkar on Monday visited Navegaon Khairi dam and Kanhan water treatment plant where she was appraised of the drastic decrease in water level in both the resources. Both the projects are left with only 44.439mmc water, out of which 1.30mmc is being consumed every day and thus water availability for Nagpur will last only for 27 days (i.e. till June 10).
Following this, Jichkar flew to Mumbai to seek CM’s approval to allow the civic body to draw 30mmc water from the dead stock of Totladoh reservoir. Had the nod not come now, the NMC would have been forced to stop supplying water to citizens from June 11 onwards.
The CM immediately gave nod to use dead stock to meet the city’s water needs, confirmed the mayor. Now, there will be no water crisis this summer, she said.
On Monday, the water works department officials, while interacting with Jichkar, raised the issue of rampant water theft from the canal that carries water from Navegaon Khairi dam to water treatment plant at Kanhan river. “The irrigation department released almost 75 cusecs of water from the dam to the Kanhan WTP through the canal. However, the WTP does not get enough water due to theft by farmers and villagers. Today, only 5% water is reserved at the river’s WTP,” WWD officials informed the mayor.
After learning about this, mayor asked the WWD to prepare a proposal to lay a pipeline to carry water from Navegaon Khairi to Kanhan WTP. This will require NMC to pay Rs50 crore. Municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar also pointed out frequent power breakdowns affecting raw water supply to Kanhan WTP. The NMC has proposed to install express feeder of 11KV capacity, he said.
To bring down non-revenue water losses, the NMC will be launching a drive to regularize illegal water connections in city limits. The drive will start from May 20, said WWD official, adding the NMC will relax norms to regularize illegal connections. The civic chief also warned stringent action against those who failed to regularize their illegal connections.