Water woes may not end even next year

The city’s water woes are expected to haunt Mumbaikars for a long time. Even if the next monsoon makes up for this year’s dismal rainfall, the horribly skewed demand-supply gap will continue to worsen the city’s water woes in the coming years.

Projections made by the hydraulic department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) indicate that the city’s water demand, which is 4,250 million litres daily (mld), will further rise with in an increase in population.

“We estimate the demand to shoot up by at least 100 mld every year,” a senior hydraulic department official said.

The supply, which has been reduced to 2,900 mld after the BMC imposed a 15% water cut, will stand at 3,420 mld if there is a normal monsoon next year. So even though the demand grows, there won’t be any change in supply in the future.

After the Middle Vaitarna project is completed in 2012, an additional 455 mld of water will be added to the supply taking it to 3,800 mld (with some amount of water lost to precipitation and in transportation). But the demand would have already risen to 4,550 mld. Which effectively means that the Rs1,800 crore Middle Vaitarna project will help the demand-supply gap reduce by just 100 mld.

“While we will be able to supply water to more people than today, the amount of water supplied to the current lot, or to the new inclusions, will be more or less the same as that being supplied today,” the official said.

The only way out from this deep mess, officials feel, was to reduce dependence on freshwater. “Judicious usage of freshwater is the need of the hour,” additional municipal commissioner Anil Diggikar said.

The BMC has already started framing laws to encourage the reuse of waste water for non-potable purposes. Desalination options are being explored too. The acute shortage has also forced the civic body to aggressively promote rainwater harvesting initiatives, which it has been accused of neglecting in the past. A programme to reduce leakages in the freshwater distribution network is also being undertaken.