| Six decades on, PHE fails to assess water "losses" in Jammu city | | | Akshay Azad
Jammu, Oct 10: Apart from digging up tube wells to meet local drinking water needs, public health engineering (PHE) department has also envisaged a scheme to use Chenab river to meet the growing demand of potable water in the winter capital of the state but it has failed to conduct any study in the last six decades to assess the loss of water enroute before it reaches households.
Sources informed Early Times that the water requirement of Jammu city was nearly 45 million gallons of water per day (MGD) and the total intake capacity of various water sources including filtration plants and tube-wells was nearly 35 million gallons per day, creating a shortfall of nearly 10 million gallons per day.
"This is a rough assessment but the actual volume of water which is reaching the urban households is still unclear as the department has no meters installed on tube-wells, filtration plants and in the houses, due to which the loss of water in supply is still unknown", sources said.
They said that despite the fact that a survey on the water-losses was very crucial for any future planning but since independence, the department has not considered it important and has never conducted any survey.
"It is the Asian Development Bank (ADB), on whose instructions, the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) has started a project to conduct Non-Revenue Water Study of Jammu city", sources said. "
They further informed that a consultant has been engaged by ERA in Jammu city, who would conduct study by installing water meters in various localities of Jammu city to access the actual loss of water.
"Meters will be installed on tube-wells, overhead tanks and in households, from where meter readings will be taken to complete the study", sources said.
An ERA official informed that they have identified 20 DMA sites in various localities, including Karan Nagar, Sarwal, Rehari Colony, Bakshi Nagar, Resham Ghar colony, Mohinder Nagar, Bhagwati Nagar, Karan Nagar, Sarwal, Trikuta Nagar, Sainik Colony, Channi Himmat, Greater Kailash, Gandhi Nagar and Shastri Nagar, where the meters would be installed.
"It will be the first step and in the second phase meters will be installed in other localities of Jammu city and readings for one week or for fifteen days will be taken to complete the survey", he said, adding, "it will take nearly one year to complete the study".
He said that once the survey was complete, the actual loss and future demands of water would be assessed in Jammu city. |
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