Most illegal slums in Mumbai already have water lines

While campaigning for the recent assembly elections chief minister Ashok Chavan had promised legal water supply for non-notified slums built before 2000. What Chavan did not know is that many of these slums already have legal water supply connections. Even though the municipal laws do not permit water connections for slums built post 1995, a study has found out that water connections are present in many of the slums built after 1995.

Citizen’s group Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (Yuva), which recently conducted a citywide study mapping the availability and accessibility of water across various communities including the ‘illegal’ or the non-notified ones, found many cases where water connections had been issued to non-notified slums.

The study has found that municipal water is being supplied through civic pipelines to 7 out of the 51 non-notified slum communities surveyed.

The big question that arises is how did these communities get a legal water connection? Most of them use dubious ration cards as proof of residence to get the connection, a senior civic official said. Another official alleges that an elected representative played a major role in procuring water connections in these slums.

The study further states that private players have established a strong foothold on water in the city. Close to 30% of the water demand in communities is being met by private players, like water suppliers and the water mafia. Of the 275 localities that were surveyed, 80 were solely dependent on private sources of water supply. The study incorporated use of hand pumps and bore wells as private sources.

The survey also found that there were 5% cases, where families from non-notified slums, were spending Rs1,500 monthly to get water. Even as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) supplies water at the minimum rate of 90 litres per person per day, the survey found that families residing in nearly 60% of the 275 communities had to survive with an overall daily supply of less than 150 litres.

“Calculating the average size of these families as four, which means that the water being supplied to these communities was at a per capita average of 37.5 litres only,” a Yuva representative said.

Also, the water available in 6.5% localities was found to be below 40 litres per family.

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