Even at a time when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) imposed 10 per cent water cut across the city, the civic body has failed to check Non-Revenue Water (NRW) which accounts to 27 per cent of total water supply. Non-revenue water includes leakages, unauthorised connections and error in metering.
The city receives 3,800 million litre water supply every day through around 6,000 km of pipeline network across the city. The BMC doesn't have the account of the massive 27 per cent of water it supplies. Ideally, the loss percentage should not be more than 15 per cent of the total supply.
As per records, the civic body recorded 20 per cent NRW in 2009. With the help of digitisation and GPS, the aim was to reduce it to 15 per cent. 10 years later, the civic body is still fighting the NRW while the percentage of loss jumped by 7 per cent.
Apart from waste through leakages, unauthorised connections and error in metering account for water wasted. "The civic body must work on leakages before imposing the water cut on citizens. They don't have workers in their leakage detection squad. If leakages are detected and repaired in time, the issue of water scarcity can be addressed," said Rais Sheikh, group leader of Samajwadi Party. Manoj Kotak, group leader of BJP told DNA. "The BMC has detailed GPS mapping in Mulund and Bandra west which can help detect leakages. Their aim was to map all pipelines in the city, but after 10 years they did it only for two wards."
"Shortage of manpower is the biggest challenge we are facing while dealing with the issue. There are fewer workers who can detect leakages; but whenever we get a complaint of water leakage, we act upon it immediately," said the BMC official.
Though concrete roads are making travel easy for commuters it adds to the water department's woes. "While small distribution lines are laid on the side of the roads, main lines run underneath roads. It's difficult to attend the leakages if the road is made of concrete. half the time the RTO doesn't give permission due to heavy traffic," said the BMC officer.
