The water scarcity is intensifying with each passing day in Nagpur. However, this was not the first time when the Orange City has been facing such crisis. In the past too, whenever the region recorded poor rains during monsoon, denizens of Nagpur had to face similar problem. Poor planning without any doubt is one of the major reasons for this situation.
However, experts believe that illegal connections and water theft too are the factors that lead to water scarcity in summer.
As per sources, there are over 30,000 illegal connections in the city which have been identified by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) or the Orange City Waters (OCW) which supplies water to the city has no exact information about these illegal connections. Nearly 25 MLD water is drawn for these illegally taken connections.
However, the exact number of illegal connections could be much higher as NMC is not yet having full data. There are six lakh household in the city, but total number of legal water connection holders is 3.5 lakh, which is just over 50 per cent. The NMC has identified 33,000 such connections but around 1.5 lakh to two lakh more such connections needed to be identified.
As per general calculations, NMC supplies 150 litres of water per person. It was assumed that each family has five members and hence, 33000 identified illegal connections amount to 24.7 MLD water. The unidentified illegal connections draw 150 MLD water. Nagpur used to get over 700 MLD water from the reservoirs when there was no crisis.
After water level started to deplete, the supply was reduced to 600 MLD. Of this 150 MLD is drawn by illegal connection holders. OCW has launched a drive to regularise the illegal connection. It is an opportunity to them to take a legal way before a drive is launch to take stern action against illegal connection holders.
According to experts, water theft too is a grave problem like electricity theft. It increases consumption and the authorities concerned had to pump out more water from the reservoirs to meet the demand. As a result, reservoirs get dried up before the expected time leading to water scarcity every year during summer.
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