E-Paper
PMC floats tenders for tanker water supply to 11 merged villages
PUNE The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is struggling to supply water to 11 villages merged in the corporation limits in 2017
PUNE The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is struggling to supply water to 11 villages merged in the corporation limits in 2017. The PMC, on Thursday, has floated a tender for water supply through tankers to these 11 villages.
The Khadakwasla Irrigation department, meanwhile, has issued a letter to the PMC pointing out excessive use of water.
In 2017, the state government merged 11 fringe villages with the PMC. The area under PMC’s jurisdiction before the delimitation exercise was 250 sqkm, which was increased to 333 sqkm with the inclusion of the 11 villages.
The state government is also finalising the process of merging 23 more villages, following which the local area of the PMC will increase to 518 sqkm. The population of the 11 newly-merged villages is 0.278 million as per the 2011 census and after the merger of 23 villages, there will be addition of another 0.5 million.
The corporation has raised demand of 18.50 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water from the Khadakawasla Iirrigation division. At present, the corporation is getting 11.50 TMC of water from Khadakwasla.
After the merger of 11 villages, PMC supplied two TMC of water every year to these areas, 80 per cent of which was through tankers.
Pune irrigation department’s chief superintendent engineer, S D Chopade, has written a letter to PMC as regards the controlled usage of water in the city.
According to the letter, PMC is getting 1460 million litres per day (MLD) of water from Khadakwasla.
Now, PMC is also getting 100 to 150 MLD of water from the Bhama-Askhed dam.
The PMC water supply department, in its reply to the irrigation department has stated that it has reduced water usage from 1,460 MLD to 1,380 MLD.
Manisha Shekatkar, executive engineer of the water supply department, said, “We need around 2 TMC water to supply to 11 merged villages. However, we don’t have enough water or a distribution system to supply water through tap. So, we are supplying tankers to the merged villages and every year, we are spending ₹10 crore for that. It is a very difficult situation.”
“Besides that, now another 23 villages are coming into the PMC limits. The water supply problem will become more critical. We have demanded 18.50 TMC of water, but the decision is still pending,” she added.
