MC makes a move to start afternoon water supply

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 6

Residents may soon hope for extra one-hour water supply in the afternoon. The Municipal Corporation (MC) has started doing technical evaluation for the same. Once the civic body starts supplying water supply in the afternoon, it will stop additional one-hour supply in the evening, which was started recently.

After getting 29 MGD of additional water from the Kajauli water works on September 28, the corporation had enhanced the morning and evening water supply timings by an hour.

However, councillors as well as residents felt it should have been started in the afternoon.

Earlier, MC officials had been claiming that it cannot be done, but in what seems to be the pressure built up by councillors in the last MC House meeting, the officials have finally agreed to work towards starting water supply in the afternoon. “We have started doing the technical evaluation for the afternoon supply and it will be completed in two-three days,” said Shailender Singh, Chief Engineer.

At present, several households are not getting extra supply in the morning and evening as claimed by the MC.

In the last House meeting, councillor and former Mayor Arun Sood, who has also been involved in the project, had asked MC Commissioner KK Yadav, “In Sector 38, there is no water supply after about 9:15 am while the MC claims to be providing it till 10 am. We could have started it in the afternoon so that we could show to people that we have actually got the additional water for the city. Then, even residents would not mind an increase in water tariff. But it has not happened.”

On this, engineers had reasoned before the House that to start the afternoon supply, they need to first make water available in the pipelines to make pressure. However, they have now chalked out a plan to do so, apparently succumbing to the pressure from councillors.

The MC spent a whopping Rs 300 crore on bringing extra water supply to the city. The regular water supply timings in the city, 4 am to 9 am and 6 pm to 9 pm, were then increased to 4 am to 10 am and 5 pm to 9 pm. However, the extra supply is yet to reach many areas.