PUNE In order to regulate the water supply to rural areas and to en-sure proper collection of water charges from the far-spread villages in Pune’s rural areas, the district administration has sought private players to run the water supply to about 50 vil-lages.
Currently, the Zilla Parishad is running at a ₹8 crore loss, as it has not been able to recover the infrastructure cost and does not have machinery in place to recover water charges efficiently.
With a private player in place the administration also hopes to minimise leakages and wastage of water.
Zilla Parishad chief executive officer Ayush Prasad said, “This is the first time we are engaging private players for ad-ministrative work. As of now, we do provide quality water but there are issues with regards to collection of water charges. The tenders have been floated for eight regional areas from rural pune which would cover approximately 50 villages. This is just a pilot project and we will see how it goes. The water charges collected from the villages will be shared as per the approved tender between the ZP and the private entity. The private organisation can use innovative ideas including meter systems to ensure that there is regular water supply and also that there is no wastage of water. However, they would not be allowed to charge more than the current rates, which are as per the respective gram panchayats.”
Pune Zilla Parishad has 1,405 gram panchayats in its jurisdic-tion, of which 50 will be covered under the regional schemes, while others have water supply regulated by the respective gram panchayats.
{{/usCountry}}Pune Zilla Parishad has 1,405 gram panchayats in its jurisdic-tion, of which 50 will be covered under the regional schemes, while others have water supply regulated by the respective gram panchayats.
{{/usCountry}}Although the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) started a meter water supply initiative under its 24x7 water supply scheme, it has not been able to connect as many households as the scheme aimed to do.