The water crisis in Thane shows no signs of improvement, as of now. The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) was expected to clean all 212 public wells by May, but has managed to clean just a handful
The water crisis in Thane shows no signs of improvement, as of now. Though the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) had planned to clean all the 212 public wells by May, it has managed to do only 30. The civic body is, however, confident that they can clean the remainder by the end of this week.
A dirty well in Azad Nagar off GB Road
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“The work began 10 days ago and we have cleaned 30 wells so far. The work is going on at a war footing. The residents will be able to use all 212 wells by the first week of May,” said a civic body official, requesting anonymity.
Thane has been hit by massive water crisis right since March, with some parts of the city even facing 60-hour water cuts. As per the Census data of 2011, population of Thane is 1,841,488 — accounting for a huge demand of potable water.
“The water cut is horrible. Earlier, most of the housing societies received 24-hours water but after the crisis, it comes for limited time. The absence of water tanks adds to the woes,” said Akshay Shetty, marketing professional who has shifted to Thane few months back.
This had prompted the municipal corporation to call for a meeting on March 15 and decide on an alternative. The residents are however not that confident of the progress.
“The authorities are just showing off with this new project. We don’t think it will be done by this year. The authorities, along with cleaning of the wells should also concentrate on water harvesting,” suggested Muzzaffar Mujawar, a sales executive and residence of Mumbra.
The cleaning of the wells was scheduled for April 1 but work got started just 10 days ago, due to the delay in tendering process. The tenders were floated ward-wise so that all the nine wards of Thane get benefited equally.
“We have cleaned two or three wells in every ward for equal treatment. After cleaning, we will start fitting pumps to these wells,” added the officer. A budget of Rs 1.7 crore was allocated for this whole cleaning process.
Well revival project proposed
TMC had proposed an “emergency water scarcity plan” in July last year when the monsoon got delayed. The mission was to reduce the dependency on tankers and tap the reservoir of well water.
Soon the monsoon arrived and this proposal took a backseat. Had the project seen the green light last year, water woes would have been so much less this year.
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