Ready for the 10-litre challenge?

It’s called the 10-litre challenge. Citizens of Singapore took it and emerged victorious; but can Mumbaikars rise to the occasion and win the challenge to curtail the city’s water woes?

The challenge is simple, it’s no rocket science. Every Mumbaikar has to reduce his daily consumption of water by 10 litres.

To quantify it in household terms, every home has to save a bucket full of water on a daily basis. The end result will be improved water supply to Mumbaikars if they take the challenge and succeed. 
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s mid-year population statistics, over 13.30 million people are residing in Mumbai.

Theoretically, if every individual was to save 10 litres everyday, it would mean a saving of over 133 million litres daily (mld). The result would be that nearly one-third of the shortage being felt on account of the water cuts imposed by the BMC will be taken care of.

After imposing the 15% water cut to homes in the city, the BMC’s hydraulic department is supplying 2,900 mld instead of the usual 3,400 mld.

The idea of taking up the 10-litre challenge came from a presentation made by Ramahad Singh, deputy director, public utilities board (PUB), Singapore’s national water agency.

Singh, who was in the city on Sunday to participate in a water seminar, said: “The 10-litre challenge programme was first initiated in Singapore in 2006. It has been well received.” The PUB keeps rolling out such incentive water conservation schemes. The schemes have worked wonders, he added.

According to Singh, the average per capita demand of water in Singapore has dropped from 168 litres per person per day (lppd) to 156 lppd in the last decade.

However, in Mumbai, the situation is a complete contrast. Even with the water cuts in place, the average per capita consumption in middle and upper middle class housing societies is 180 lppd.

According to civic body’s former hydraulic chief TV Shah, the accepted global supply norm is about 150 lppd. Which means the water being supplied to us even during grim times is more than the minimum standard norm. This also means that there is plenty of room for citizens to save water.

The citizens need to be encouraged to cut down their water consumption patterns, Singh said.

The 10-litre challenge has also got sections of the city’s political leadership interested. Ashish Shelar, BJP’s leader in the BMC, feels that this is one of the things that the city must necessarily do to tide over the water crisis. Both Shelar and Singh expressed their views during a round-table discussion organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a non-profit public policy think tank on water crisis.

Slum colonies have already warmed up to the model. Dayanand Jadhav of the Triratna Prerana Mandal, an NGO working in a slum located near Khotwadi in Santacruz, spoke of a model whereby recycled water is used for all secondary uses in the slum.

“Municipal water is only used for drinking purposes,” Jadhav said. Commercial and bulk users could similarly meter their consumption down by 10%.