The Kolkata Municipal Corporation ( KMC) will do away with deep tube wells in phases, said mayor Firhad Hakim.
He inaugurated a booster pumping station and an underground reservoir with 15 million gallon capacity on Saturday evening. The booster pumping station is situated at Panchanantala in ward 90. The KMC has proposed to set up a booster pumping station in ward 91, he announced.
Deep tubewells affect the ground water level very badly which ultimately leads to subsidence. The civic bodies are no longer installing deep tubewells and the remaining ones will be removed in phases.
Mr Hakim said because of wastage of water , there were pockets in the city where the people were not getting enough drinking water. “It is a sin to waste filtered water. We have given the slogan save water, save life but mere slogan will not do. We will have to play active role in stopping wastage of drinking water.”
He said it was most unfortunate that in many places cars and commercial vehicles were being washed with drinking water. Earlier, the cars were washed and roads were cleaned with unfiltered water. Even in houses there were tanks for unfiltered water which was used for flushing.
It may be mentioned that the Chennai Municipal Corporation has made rain water harvesting mandatory in housing complexes and the rain water is used for cleaning, gardening and flushing. It has been found that to wash a car 30 litre to 40 litre water is used.
The KMC has already installed water meters in wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in north Kolkata and is going to install them in wards 101, 102, 107, 110 soon to assess the requirement of water.
According to the Urban Development ministry 135 litres of drinking water per head is supplied by the civic bodies on an average across the country whereas in KMC area it is 150 litres per head, much more than the national average.
Mr Hakim said for a family of four 600 litres of filtered water per day was more than sufficient but it had often been seen that more filtered water was being used by a family of four in the city. The meter would assess the usage of filtered water in a particular ward.
The Asian Development Bank had proposed installation of water meters and water tax.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had rejected the proposal to impose water tax outright. In a recent report the World Bank had said KMC’s supply of drinking water was highest in the country. During summer there is water crisis in some pockets and water tankers are deployed to combat the situation where as cities like Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad there is massive water crisis, the World Bank report stated.