Pune water crisis: ‘Fix illegal connections, leakages’

Right to Information (RTI) activist, Maj Gen (retd) S Jathar on Sunday said illegal connections and leakages were the main reasons for the water scarcity in the city.

“Before the elections, it seems many illegal connections were given to slums, localities and societies. Besides, because of the poor state of water pipelines, a lot of water is wasted. We assume that 40% of water is wasted due to this reason,” Jathar claimed.
He was speaking at a discussion organised by the Sajag Nagrik Manch (SNM) on water shortage in the city. SNM founder, Vivek Velankar and retired executive engineer (water supply) of PMC, Ramesh Botaljee were present.

According to him, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has to take steps to stop illegal connections and repair the water pipelines to curb the problem. 

Jathar said recycling of water is not done in efficiently by the PMC.  “Around 6.6 TMC of water out of 11.5 TMC that the city receives needs to be recycled,” he said.

Velankar said the PMC has failed to maintain records of water supply. “What we demand is that the authorities publish the accounts of  water supply of the last three years. The information on the amount of water supplied to industries, agriculture and households should be clarified. The authorities do not have any record of 9 TMC of water,” said Velankar.