Fixing meters mandatory to supply water 24x7 in city

- Citizens staying away from 21 metres to get water with pressure.

Lokmat News Network

Aurangabad:

The union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said, “Many small and big cities of the country have started receiving water 24x7. We will also experiment with it successfully in the historic Aurangabad city, but for it, the meter will have to be fixed to all the water connections in the city. We ensure that the expense burden of the meter will not be upon the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), but would be borne by the Central and the State Governments.”

“Besides, efforts are also being made so that there should be no need of fixing the motor to the tap to draw water directly. Under the new water supply scheme, the proposal was to provide water with pressure to residents staying 12 metres away from the connections, but the effort is underway to extend the distance to 21 metres,” pointed out Karad.

It may be noted that the union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has constituted a committee of experts for its 'Drink from Tap'mission. It comprises Dr M Dhinadhayalan, Dr Ramakant, Dr Sanjay Dahasahasra and Punita Manocha along with Israel experts Dr Lior Asaf and Neeraj Gahlawat. They were in the city to review the mission.

Karad, in presence of these expert teams, today reviewed the water supply scheme, at Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL) headquarters, on Monday morning. The experts sought opinions on how to strengthen, and rejuvenate the water scheme, apart from making it qualitative. The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) administrator Abhijeet Chaudhari, superintending engineer Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran (MJP) R S Lolapod, executive engineer Ajay Singh, AMC city engineer S D Panzade, executive engineer M B Kazi and others were present in the meeting.

While speaking to media persons after the conclusion of the meeting, Karad said,” The new water supply scheme has been included in the Central Government's Amrut 2.0 Mission. The Central Government has shared some of its contributions with the state government. It was between Rs 250 crore to Rs 275 crore. Under the new scheme of valuing Rs 2,714 crore, the proposal was to provide water with adequate pressure to the residents staying at a distance of 12 metres away from the pipeline connections. The experts, however, instructed us to extend the distance to 21 metres. They also underlined that the population of the city will be 40 lakhs in the year 2050. Hence the existing old water supply scheme should be retained functioning.”

”It is mandatory to fix meters to supply water to the citizens 24x7 and an expenditure of Rs 25 crore to 30 crores is expected upon it. We will help provide an independent fund for it. The commercial connections will have automatic meter readers, while the residential connections will have meters which will be read by the staff. However, the AMC is authorised to fix the water tax charges and collect it as well,” he said.