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High turbidity hits water supply in Shimla
Water supply in Shimla, capital of rain- battered Himachal Pradesh, has been disrupted for the past five days due to excessive turbidity at the city’s perennial sources, officials said on Tuesday.
Water supply in Shimla, capital of rain- battered Himachal Pradesh, has been disrupted for the past five days due to excessive turbidity at the city’s perennial sources, officials said on Tuesday.
“Due to high turbidity in the perennial sources, it has become difficult to lift water for supply,” said Pankaj Lalit, managing director of Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam, the city’s water supplier.
Shimla’s daily water supply, which is between typically 36 and 42 million litres daily (MLD), dipped to 6.5 MLD on Tuesday. After the recent rains, the presence of suspended particles at the Giri river was 7,720 NTU, when the acceptable range is from 0.5-1.0 NTU. NTU, or Nephelometric Turbidity Unit, is a measure of the opaqueness of a fluid due to the presence of suspended solids.
Shimla received only 2.23MLD of water from another perennial source at Gumma, while there was no supply from the Giri river. Churat nullah could supply only 2.3 MLD of water and Seog 1.45 MLD. The water supply authority could not draw any water from Charh that supplies 0.77 MLD.
As a result, the nigam has deployed tankers to meet the shortfall in water supply. “So far, one dozen tankers have been engaged for the town, but we will be hiring more private ones,” said Lalit.
“We are inspecting water sources and will be tapping rainwater nullahs till the turbidity in the river settles,” said Ashish Butail, chief parliamentary secretary, urban development.
Shimla received torrential rainfall of 240 mmin a span of 36 hours.
The local administration has started water rationing as an immediate step. The nigam resorts to rationing, which amounts to 70 litres per head in a day, when supply drops below 30 MLD. Water is routinely supplied on alternate days in Shimla.
The town faced its last such crisis in June 2018, when it went without water for 10 days.
Residents are left to their own devices to meet their water requirement. People braved long queues at limited distribution points or resorted to desperate measures like collecting rainwater and buying bottled water to meet their basic needs.
“We have not got water in Sanjauli for the past four days and are depending on tankers,” said local resident Sandhya Chauhan. “It will take a few days to resume normal supply given the scale of damage the rain has caused.”
Tourism, too, has taken a hit as hotels and restaurants in the city are struggling to get water tankers to cater to the needs of their guests. “We are expecting the tourist footfall to go up again around the weekend, by when normal supply should resume,” said Mohinder Seth, president of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Stakeholders Association. “At present, we are relying on tankers.”
