Pooja Kamble, a homemaker from Ramtirth village in Beed district in central Maharashtra, walks 15 km in the blistering heat to fetch water for her family. At the end of her ordeal, she manages to get 16 litres of drinking water. She makes two trips a day to the community well, which is the only well in a 30-km vicinity that has not gone dry.
Meanwhile, 475 km away, Shalini Pant, a working mother staying in suburban Mumbai uses 80 litres of water, in her washing machine for washing the soiled T-shirts of her son after he returns from football practice.
More water
Today, in Maharashtra, the hinterland is facing the worst drought in decades, while on the coast, in cities such as Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Ratnagiri there is surplus water. According to the statistics of the Hydraulic Department of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the six lakes, which supply to Mumbai cumulatively have 326,405 thousand million litres of water, while last year it had 316,886 thousand million litres. In effect, the financial capital has more water this year than the previous year.
Less Pilferage
Vijay Khabale, spokesperson for the MCGM told
Khabale pointed out that, unlike the existing pipelines, it would be very difficult to siphon off water from the tunnels.
Mumbai city, with its current population of 12.5 million, gets 3,350 million litres of water per day. Its per capita water availability is 180 litres per day; on an average the supply is for 90 minutes to 4 hours.
A senior official in the Hydraulic Department said that the city manages to get enough drinking water in spite the mushrooming population because of the vision and the foresight of the British administrators. Today, it would be impossible to create such an infrastructure due to the cost factor, the official said.