Vasai-Virar faces another water cut: Who will tackle the bigger crisis?

Residents under the Vasai-Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) say water pressure continues to be low despite a malfunctioning transformer being fixed.

Residents in the Vasai-Virar belt continue to suffer from water problems even though a transformer that had malfunctioned on Tuesday last week has been repaired. The malfunction had cut power to the Surya Nagar Water Purification Centre built by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). As a result, the Kavdas Pumping Station had failed, depriving a large section of the population of water.

Vikramgad, Palghar, India - March 19, 2024:Surya regional bulk water supply scheme , Water treatment Plant, Suryanagar, in Vikramgad, Palghar, India, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

However, residents under the Vasai-Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) say water pressure continues to be low, significantly reducing supply. It would appear that the Surya water pipeline, meant to bring respite to a major portion of the western Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has not worked out as hoped. Water supply issues crop up with alarming regularity – even though the Surya Regional Water Supply Project recently won a national award.

Sources in the MMRDA said they are collaborating with the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) for a long-term solution. “We have asked MSEDCL to provide a power connection as a long-term measure,” sources in MMRDA said.

MSEDCL officials, for their part, said they addressed the power supply issue as far as they could but the transformer’s maintenance is the MMRDA’s responsibility.

The municipal corporation supplies water to residents from both the old and new Surya dam projects. However, since the project under MMRDA is currently hit, water supply to Vasai-Virar is insufficient.

“For more than a week, we have been relying on water tankers, which have hiked their rates two to four times,” said S Dwivedi, a resident of Vasai-Virar. He said his housing colony has been ordering at least two water tankers daily, and rates vary from ₹6,000 to ₹10,000 per tanker, up from ₹2,000 to ₹3,000. Other residents from Vasai said they have been bribing the watchman, who controls the valves of the water tank.

As residents grapple with yet another water shortage, the VVCMC has trotted out a line they’ve heard many times before – “efforts are being made to restore normal water supply as quickly as possible”.