Water crisis: all for 60 'missing' men

PATNA: While residents of many areas in Patna are suffering from a man-made water crisis, the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) authorities have raised their hands in helplessness. As usual, government apathy and sarkari ways of doing things are proving a hindrance in providing regular water supply to people of various localities who have been protesting on roads against the infringement on their rights.
The Patna Water Board, an arm of PMC, responsible for the water supply has its own share of woes.Board chief engineer Ravindra Kumar said that Patna has a good ground water level.
"There is no problem either of quantity or quality of water, but the real problem lies in the system," he said.
He said that PMC does not have adequate number of pump operators. "Though the number of pumps have increased to three times since 1952, when the board was established, the number of operators has gone down to one-third," he said.
There are 110 pump operators only against the requirement of more than 170 needed for running the 85 pumps in Patna in two shifts.
"In the absence of pump operators, in many areas people have taken upon themselves the task of operating pumps which has led to an increase in the number of breakdowns," Kumar said.
"The other problem is old pipelines. In some areas like Lohanipur, Bakerganj, Mithapur, Chiraiyatand, the pipelines are as old as 50 to 70 years. Though the actual diameter of these pipes is 2 to 4 inches, with time due to formation of encrustation on the inner walls of the pipes their diameter has decreased which has lead to poor discharge of water from these pipes," he said.
Last year, 44 pumping stations were installed in Patna which have come to the rescue of the people, otherwise the situation would have gone out of control, Kumar added.
Meanwhile, the board has almost gone immobile as two tractors, two trucks and one trailer are waiting for repair, with the result the gangmen are facing a lot of difficulties in carrying out their work.
Sources in the board said, it takes a number of days to get funds sanctioned by the PMC for minor repairs which hampers the work a great deal.
"The centralised functioning of PMC also creates problems," the sources said.
To cap it all, the board is headed by a chairman who has serious charges levelled against him and is at present on bail.
When he was asked about the water crisis situation in Patna, he stated that he needed time to give any information.
On the other hand, PMC chief executive officer A K Singh said that usually problems erupt because of breakdown of transformers or motors.
"We don''t have spare transformers so it takes a few days for things to turn normal. However, we are going to purchase seven transformers of 200 kVA capacity so that the faulty transformers can be changed immediately," he said.
We are also going to recruit about 50 persons on contract to meet the manpower demand. Moreover, he added the board requires restructuring as there is a need of junior and assistant engineers in the board.
Meanwhile, a 280 crore project for new pipelines in Patna is under consideration. The project has been referred to the Japan Bank of International Corporation by the department of economic affairs of the Central government for external financing.