Municipal corporation forced to think out-of-box to resolve water crisis

With the city grappling with water cuts for the last seven months, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has been forced to think of out-of-box to resolve water woes in the metropolis.

MCGM has undertaken initiatives like cleaning existing wells, digging bore wells, cloud seeding, water helpline, use of universal water meters, telescopic rates, repair of dilapidated pipelines, and setting up desalination plants to resolve the water crisis.

"Delay in arrival of monsoon coupled with poor rainfall made things worse for the city and we were in a difficult situation," a civic official said. "The water situation had all of us worried and we had to think of innovative ways to come out of this situation. We do don't know what results will the new methods adopted by us yield," a civic official said.

Due to poor monsoon and reservoirs drying up, MCGM had since June 8 imposed water cut of 10% which then got increased to 20 per cent and then 30% in July. Amidst political pressure, MCGM had then brought down the water cut to 15% in the same month.

As condition worsened, MCGM which was contemplating to increase water cuts, on October 28 announced, it would retain 15% water cut till next monsoon.