India
Residents in manyareas have to shell out Rs600 for drinking water supplied by private dealers.
Updated : Sep 23, 2011, 02:20 PM IST
Rakesh Jain owns a flat at LP Savani Road in Surat, which is a posh area in Adajan. Unfortunately, the water supplied to his house is saline rendering it useless for drinking purpose. Jain installed a reverse osmosis (RO) water system but it too failed to provide the desired results. Now, he buys 20 litres of water every day to meet his family's requirements.
Jain is one of the several residents of the area who have been facing the problem for some time. "How can we drink saline water? While buying the house we knew that the groundwater here was saline but we still finalised the deal because buying a house was our immediate priority. Our apartment lacks Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) water connection," said Jain.
The apartment has its own water connection but it's saline water that is supplied. Jain and his family use this water for bathing and other household activities.
Residents have become dependent on private suppliers to meet their drinking water needs because groundwater in areas like Vesu, Piplod, some parts of New City-light, Dumas Road, Adajan and Rander has gone saline. The situation is worst in Adajan and Rander where most of the groundwater is not potable.
Land developers here offer everything but don't guarantee drinking water facility. The main reason behind such a situation is heavy flow of sea water into the city through Tapi River. Water discharged from Ukai dam is stored at a weir-cum-causeway which is at Rander-Singanpore Road - the heart of Surat.
The weir-cum-causeway was built in 1995 for Rs35 crore to create a permanent source of water for Surat. Possessing a capacity of 31,000 thousand cubic metre (TCM), it has served the purpose but the city is also paying for it. According to estimates, groundwater has gone saline in thousand acres of land because of this.
SMC officials also agree with this. Jatin Shah, SMC city engineer said, "Fresh water doesn't flow into the river as the weir-cum-causeway blocks its free flow. At present, the water in the river is waste water which comes from rivulets and illegal drains. This water too is mixed with chemicals and other impurities. When it gets mixed with sea water, groundwater is also adversely affected."
To prevent further salination of water, the civic body is planning to make a rubber barage few metres ahead of Magdalla Bridge. This will give the city an additional water reservoir of fresh water. The move will also stop further salination of groundwater.
SMC supplies 780 MLD water and is finding it difficult to cope with demand. Private water suppliers are using potable groundwater but its level is also going down. "Surat's water requirement will be more than 1200 MLD in 2020 which can be difficult to accomplish. Balloon barage is necessary if we want to cope with future demand," Shah added.
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