MBMC ignores rainwater harvesting as water crisis deepens in Mira-Bhayandar

Despite adequate rainfall and overflowing dams, the MiraBhayandar belt continues to face an acute water shortage for the last couple of weeks.

While the deficit is attributed to technical glitches and pipeline bursts, the water supply department of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) is not taking any steps in monitoring the rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems. Even as the water management policy is stuck in limbo, it has not carried any water audits to correct the leakages and thefts.

The twin-city has a requirement of 225 MLD (Millions Litre per Day) but has allocation of only 211 MLD provided jointly by the MIDC (125 MLD) and STEM (86 MLD) water supply authorities. However, the actual supply hovers below 200 MLD as the civic administration still loses a massive quantity of potable water in transit daily due to leakages, unaccounted supply, and theft.

While the frequency of water supply has been limited to once in 72 to 75 hours in most of the areas, a senior MBMC officer claimed that the technical glitches had been resolved and the supply was slowly returning to normalcy.

Several calls to the Executive Engineer (water supply) Suresh Vakode went unanswered.

Aimed at recharging water resources, the installation of RWHS had been mandated since 2009. However, despite an acute scarcity of water compounded by receding groundwater table, most of the RWH units are dilapidated, even MBMC has been failing to monitor the mechanism.

Meanwhile, the BJP, which single-handedly rules the MBMC, has decided to launch an agitation on 21 October to register their protest against the acute water crisis. As per statistics, the total number of water connections in the twin-city stands at 44,714, comprising 41,363 residential and 3,351 commercial users.