Water Shortage Cripples Faridabad
THE FURY of summer is still away a couple of months, but the water crisis in this town of 14-lakh population have already reached alarming dimension.
And the water famine is likely to persist for an unspecified time as the much-touted 40-crore Ranney Wells Water Augmentation Scheme moving at a snail's pace. It will not become operative till the end of the next year. So the coming summer months would be the cruelest for the denizens of Faridabad.
What is disconcerting is that the burgeoning water crisis is man-made, or say Corporation-made, and a natural scourge. Dismal fiscal mismanagement, lackadaisical approach, unrealistic and unimaginative planning, ad-hocism and lack of maintenance have compounded the crisis.
The areas served by the Municipal Corporation require approximately 520 lakh gallons of water every day. But the 250-odd tubewells, the only source of water supply, provide about 380 lakh gallons of water. Thus a daily shortfall of 140-lakh gallons of water is left. In order to partially make up this shortfall, and meet the future requirement of water of the town, the government, after dilly-dallying for over 15 years, ultimately approved the 40-crore Ranney Wells Water Augmentation Scheme, last year. From this scheme 90 lakh gallons of additional water is likely to be available per day, which would boost the already dwindled water pressure, plus augmenting the water supply.
But the progress of the scheme has been extremely slow. So far the Corporation and HUDA, the two agencies entrusted the task to execute the scheme, have spent only Rs 3 crore, as against the approved cost of Rs 40 crore. Inquiries made from the Corporation revealed that only 20 per cent of the work had been done, which included two underground tanks of 10-lakh gallons capacity in Dabua and Jawahar colonies. The worse is that only Rs 3 crore have been spent as against the promised fiscal expenditure of Rs 10 crore till the end of March this year.
The tubewells present a dirty and deserted look. Staff deployed on duty to run the tubewells, are invariably absent after switching on the motors. Most of them are having private vocations to supplement their earnings. Even the bleaching powder used to make the water potable, is of sub-standard. Corruption and ad hocism are the other problems. Last year the Corporation is reported to have spent about Rs 20 lakh on the supply of water through water tanks, instead of spending the amount for the maintenance of the water supply. The Corporation has been in such a financial muddle, that the contractors have invariably refused to execute the allotted works, as their payments are delayed. The contractors allege that the unscrupulous officials in the financial branch do not release the payment, unless they are illegally gratified with a stipulated percentage of the due payment.
And the Commissioner finds himself in catch-22 situation. He is helpless to take action against corrupt and erring officials. Notwithstanding the government policy of having a separate municipal cadre, the dishonest officials cannot be transferred to other civic bodies, for obvious reasons.
Recently, the Corporation received in its kitty Rs 25 crore from the sale of land to the NTPC. But even this did not improve the financial health of the civic body, as the amount was spent on the payment of salaries of the staff.
The consumers here have to put up with the paucity of water at least in the first year of the new millennium.