The Hindu

Mangalore, Nov 18: Water whenever you turn on the tap may become a reality if the elected councils of five urban local bodies in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts have the political will.

The Government has identified Mangalore, Ullal, Puttur, Udupi and Kundapur for launching round-the-clock water supply schemes. The ball is in the court of these councils.

According to Arvind Shrivastava, Managing Director, Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC), round-the-clock water supply to houses is possible through a public-private partnership (PPP) model, a three-month study conducted in these places by the KUIDFC has shown.

“Round-the-clock water supply is not a fantasy. The KUIDFC has already made it possible in select wards of Gulbarga, Belgaum and Hubli-Dharwad city corporations since January 2008 under the PPP model. Now it is planning to extend it to all the wards in those places,” he said.

“Obviously, no one will say no to it,” Mr. Shrivastava, who has served as the Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada, said. It will prevent leakages and maintain quality. “When there is continuous water supply, there will always be pressure on supply lines and hence leakage can be identified easily and plugged quickly. External elements will not enter the network of pipes,” he added.

He said that in select wards of the three city corporations, leakage had come down to seven per cent after the KUIDFC introduced the 24x7 water supply scheme.

Syed Illias Pasha, Superintending Engineer, KUIDFC, Mangalore, said that according to an estimate, 40 per cent of water was being wasted in the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) limits now owing to leaks.

Mr. Shrivastava said that unnecessary storage of water could be avoided when there was round-the-clock water supply.

According to Rakesh Bangera, a representative of CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory, which conducted the feasibility study on 24x7 water supply scheme under MCC for the KUIDFC, the civic body would require Rs. 68 crore for implementing this scheme and an additional 510 staff members.

The corporation could award the contract to a single agency. The payments would have to be made on the basis of performance. The contract agency would have to invest the additional fund required and mobilise the staff. Operation and maintenance would be with the agency but under the supervision of the civic body, he said.

The corporation could also seek funds for the scheme under a Central scheme.

Mr. Shrivastava said that a cell should be set up in the corporation to address the complaints of the consumers. In case of defaulters, power to disconnect water supply should be vested with the corporation and not the contract agency. There was no need to increase the water tariff for implementing this scheme, he said.

Mr. Shrivastava said that if the MCC and civic bodies of other places passed a resolution endorsing the 24x7 scheme, the KUIDFC would prepare a detailed project report and the contract documents.

Mr. Bangera said that there were 71,608 water connections in the city corporation area. It would have to change the old network of individual house connections and some main supply lines. The corporation should ensure that water meters were fixed for all connections while going for the new scheme, he said.

Harinath, Leader of the Opposition in the city corporation council, said that it was not an easy task to implement the new scheme. It would require at least two years for the corporation to prepare itself for it.

The KUIDFC had now laid only main supply lines in the city and had not replaced the old network of individual house connections and some main supply lines. Financial implications would be huge for changing them entirely, he said.

The KUIDFC had been connecting new lines laid by it to the old network of pipelines.

As a result, some old pipelines were bursting in many places, he pointed out.

Muneer Katipalla, president, Dakshina Kananda unit of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), said that if the corporation went ahead with the 24x7 water supply scheme, it was nothing but privatising water supply in the city. It would deny water to the poor. “We are totally against this move,” he said.