BMC to promote legal water connections in slums

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated a programme with the help of an NGO to persuade slumdwellers to get legal water connections by creating awareness in slum areas about water-losses through illegal sources.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has initiated a programme with the help of an NGO to persuade slumdwellers to get legal water connections by creating awareness in slum areas about water-losses through illegal sources.

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Additional municipal commissioner Rajiv Jalota said that it was a measure to persuade slumdwellers about the disadvantages of illegal connections.

“We will try to convince them to get legal and metered BMC water connections”.

According to Jalota, 3,350 million litres of water is supplied to the city every day. Of this supply, nearly 700 million litres of water is either stolen or lost due to leakages. Through this, the BMC also hopes to improve the pattern of water distribution in Mumbai. The BMC has approached the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an NGO working at the community level, to undertake the pilot project in the slum pockets like Shivaji Nagar in Govandi and Malvani in Malad, Jalota added.

The NGO would speak to around 500 families to form a group to buy and share a metered BMC water connection. “Slumdwellers buy water from tankers or the water lobby, we will convince them to spend that money on a legal water connection instead,” another official said.