Corporators have been fuming over the water crisis for over a month, and demanding water from the neighbouring Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation and the Bhatsa dam. At present, the city is getting 3250 million litres of water per day (MLD), while the city requires 4,000 MLD, thus resulting in a shortage of 750 MLD of water.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Anil Diggikar said, “We met state irrigation and water resources minister Ajit Pawar today, and he has agreed to supply 100 MLD additional water from Bhatsa dam as the city is experiencing shortage of water,” said Diggikar.

This additional water would be distributed equally in city as well as suburbs. “As corporators have been complaining that the suburbs get less attention, we thought of equally distributing this supply. We will divide 100 MLD water in western and eastern suburbs equally,” said Diggikar. “Out of 100 MLD, 50 MLD will be released in the next three days while the remaining will be pumped into the Pise pumping station. The additional supply can be utilised for the next two years,” he added.

The civic body, meanwhile, will also continue its work on the Middle Vaitarna project. “The Middle Vaitarna Dam will be ready by 2011 and it will begin to supply water to the city. Until then, this is a measure to increase pressure in and help areas that are badly affected by water shortage,” said Diggikar. 

The city also loses around 650 MLD of water due to leakage and thefts. Only two months ago, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had announced that building constructions requiring supply of 2 lakh litres per day will not be given water connections till 2011. For constructions whose demand is less than 2 lakh litres per day, 45 litres per person per day will be supplied instead of the present national norm of 90 litres per person per day.