The grim irony was unmistakable as the new Mayor of Kolkata assumed office this week. In parallel to the grandstanding in honour of Firhad Hakim at the red-brick building on SN Banerjee Road, is the crippling water crisis in the recently added areas of Tollygunge and Jadavpur, indeed a vast swathe of south Kolkata.
Verily has the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s chronically dismal performance now affected life’s essential ~ drinking water. Indeed, tax-payers in these areas of the city are compelled to buy drinking water. And this hopefully will be accorded uppermost priority by Mr Hakim, more urgently than the introduction of a Whatsapp number to which citizens can “lodge complaints with accompanying pictures”.
The short point must be that people of Tollygunge and Jadavpur have been consistently complaining about the water problem, but with little or no effect. They need water to drink and can well do without the frippery masquerading as fast connectivity. As reported in this newspaper, many if not most in these two areas are dependent on groundwater and tube wells, despite the KMC’s efforts ~ under the previous Mayor ~ to minimise their use.
The corporation must of necessity get to the root of the problem, indeed to identify the possible bottlenecks in the supply from Tallah pumping station in North Kolkata. A booster pumping station is direly imperative. The crisis can be contextualised with the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s alert on depletion of groundwater, a caveat that has been embedded in the report furnished by the Central Groundwater Board.
It reflects poorly on the KMC’s functioning that groundwater is being used “continually” despite directives to the contrary. In point of fact, drawing water from “down under” is the only source of supply to the cheek-byjowl highrises that dot the urban landscape. In parallel, the other directive on the phasing out of antediluvian tubewells has been given the short shrift.
Having succeeded to a depleted inheritance, Mayor Hakim’s signal of intent is to be welcomed, specifically to impart greater professionalism and introduce departmental monitoring to ensure streamlined functioning. Not wholly unrelated is the decision to prune a top-heavy administration. Towards that end, every department will be helmed by only one Director-General.
Mr Hakim was fairly assertive when he said, “Rules need to be followed no matter which department it is, and we have to ensure fast delivery in maintenance and governance.” Central to the municipal administration at KMC or any other municipality for that matter is the overwhelming sloth, that successive administrations have failed to address.