Faridabad's water woes to end by 2011

The Times of India

Faridabad can hope to get 24X7 uninterrupted water supply by the second half of 2011, around two-and-a-half-years from now. After the Centre approved the Rs 493.4 crore water augmentation plan, city managers claim that Faridabad will get rid of all water tankers within six months and in the next phase of the project it would get round-the-clock water supply.

The Centre approved the plan placed by Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF) under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). According to a government release, the plan has been approved by the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee of the sub-mission on Urban Infrastructure and Governance under JNNURM. The Centre will provide Rs 246.7 crore assistance to MCF and proposes to release Rs 61.68 crore in the first instalment.

The main objective is to augment water supply sources and spread the supply network to cover the entire city. Said MCF commissioner R K Khullar: "The tender for the first phase has already been floated to ensure we don't waste time after getting central assistance. Every ward will get an overhead storage tank, which will store enough water to meet the supply for at least 40% of the houses for one day in case there is any disruption in supply from the source.''

Khullar added that after the second phase all tubewells that have turned saline would be abandoned. According to official estimates, approximately 230 tubewells out of 600 have turned saline and the water is unfit for consumption. The present transmission network, which depends entirely on groundwater, covers around 35% of the city.

At present, the per capita water supply is 87 lpcd, with urban poor getting only 40 lpcd, 34% of the area gets 40 lpcd and 17% of the city limits get 60 lpcd. The project envisages water augmentation up to the reservoir level through augmentation of service reservoirs by constructing reverse osmosis (RO) plants, radial collecting well, tubewells and buffer storage reservoirs.

With the population expected to shoot up in next few years, water demand is set to increase manifold. As per estimates, Faridabad's population would touch the 15.37 lakh mark by 2011 and will grow further by 2021 to about 21.34 lakh people. This figure is expected to reach 28.46 lakh by 2031.

The population of Faridabad is about 13.37 lakh (approx 40% living in slums), having daily water requirement of about 201 million litres (MLD). About 115 MLD is drawn from 420 deep tubewells and nearly 25 MLD from two ranney wells located along the Yamuna.

The MCF is likely to take up work to increase the drinking water supply and also improve its quality in the first phase. However, what seems to raise doubts about MCF's claims is that it has to share 50% of the project cost. "This is huge. With little source of income available to us, it would be nearly impossible to raise the amount,'' said an MCF official.