The first water rake carrying five lakh litres of water left Miraj for Latur on April 11.
Monday will mark 50 days of the state government's and railways' ambitious water by train project to give relief to the parched Latur. The first water rake carrying five lakh litres of water left Miraj for Latur on April 11. The first full 50-wagon rake carrying 25 lakh water left for Latur on April 19.
Railway officials told dna that till late Sunday evening, a total of 45 trips were made and a sizeable 945 lakh litres of water was transported from Miraj near Pune railway division to Latur in Solapur railway division.
The numbers could have been more impressive but for the fact that no loading of water took place between May 21 and 25, because of a drop in Krishna river's water level. This led to the state administration releasing 2,000 cusecs – nearly 56,600 litres water per second – from a nearby dam to better the levels in Krishna river.
"The rake started getting loaded on May 21 but left only on May 25 because of this drop in water level," said AK Tiwari, senior divisional operations manager of Pune railway division.
While the efforts of the state and railways are worth appreciating, the ground reality is that all this water is just about 19 days of normal water supply to the Latur town. According to Latur district officials, the normal daily requirement of water for the Latur city is 50 million litres. Latur city is one of the nine urban clusters in the district. While the 500 villages of the district have their own sources, the water being brought in by the railway wagons is used to supply water to the Latur city, said the district officials.
At present, two water rakes are running between Miraj and Latur. A third rake has already reached Partur and it will also be used to transport water to Latur but is yet to deployed for water-carrying duties. While Miraj is 375km from Latur, Dudhana via Partur is 290km from Latur, so the third rake will reduce the running time considerably whenever it is deployed, said the railway officials.
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 "The first water rake carrying five lakh litres of water left Miraj for Latur on April 11.")
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