Vision for better water

kolkata: water supply in kolkata and its suburbs is likely to be rationed in future. this has come out in vision 2025, the perspective plan for the calcutta metropolitan area prepared by the calcutta metropolitan development authority. at present, residents living within the calcutta municipal corporation limits receive an average of 225 litres of water per head per day.however, the master plan prepared by the cmda in 1966 stipulated that by 2001, this had to be 270 litres per day for residents of cmc and howrah municipal corporation areas. for other urban areas within the cma, this had to be 227 litres per head per day. however, the recently released perspective plan, which provides an outline for urban planning till 2025, envisages that the per capita availability shall be 150 litres per day. the water would be supplied via six service districts identified by the water treatment plants in the specified areas — palta, kolkata, garden reach, sonarpur, howrah and serampore. the one change, however, that the plan envisages is the continuous supply of potable water. currently, water supply lasts for only specific hours, except for a few pockets adjacent to the tala pumping station. intermittent water supply is also a major contaminator of water in the city, according to a recent study funded by the world bank. intermittent water supply promotes contamination during non-supply hours...most of the pipes in the distribution network are heavily corroded, says the report. the plan stipulates the discontinuance of unfiltered water supply in the city. unfiltered water was mainly meant for street washing, toilet flushing... but a sizeable section of the population are compelled to use this water for bathing and washing purposes, which leads to the incidence of water borne diseases, the world bank-funded study says. about 66 million gallons of unfiltered water is supplied to the city every day. combined with the fact that this leads to a severe clogging of the supply lines due to siltation, the report also says that cross connection with the potable water supply often leads to contamination of the filtered water as well. one of the highlights that the plan points out is the reduction in ground water levels due to excessive use of deep tubewells. quality and quantity of ground water ...is seen to be uncertain for municipal supplies, the plan observes. in this situation, the plan envisages surface water supply to reach the entire cma by 2025 barring madhyamgrm, barasat, rajarhat-gopalpur, baruipur and rajpur-sonarpur municipalities.