Water supply to Shimla doubles since May

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 30

The residents of Shimla, who reeled under the acute water crisis this summer with the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) not being able to supply water even after seven or eight days' gap, can forget the bitter experience because Shimla got the highest-ever supply of 52.05 million litre (MLD) on Saturday.

The supply had dipped to 23 to 28 MLD during May. Hopefully, long queues of people at water tankers will be a thing of past. Taking lessons from the crisis, leakages were plugged, worn-out pipes were replaced and pumps and moors were overhauled which helped increasing the water supply.

“The total installed capacity of all pumping stations is 54 MLD and we have achieved 52.05 MLD,” said Managing Director of the Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Dharmendra Gill, adding that all pumps and motors were overhauled, increasing their capacity and the pipeline from Creignano to Dhalli, installed in 1924, had a leakage of about 5 MLD which was being replaced.

The process of replacing the pipeline would be completed by October-end. Moreover, the leakage of 7 MLD was plugged in the Giri pipeline in 2016-17, 1km stretch of the line was replaced and tenders had been awarded to replace 3 km pipeline above Dhamandri.

Earlier, only three old pumps were operational at the Gumma station and these had been replaced by four new pumps, besides plugging the leakage of 2.5 MLD at the Ashwani Khud, and tenders had been awarded for upgrading and modernisation of sewerage plants at Malyana, Dhalli and Lal Pani, he said.

Censor would be installed in all tanks which would help check the inflow of water, chlorine concentration and the goal of 24x7 water supply would be achieved by December-end, he said.

The nigam had installed 25,000 new metres and made a database of 60,000 consumers, which would be made online. The database would help the nigam in identifying the complainant and location so that the problem could be located and addressed at the earliest, Gill added.

The minimum requirement of the town with population of over 2 lakh was about 40-42 MLD which increases by 8-10 MLD during the peak tourist season due to a floating tourist population which is 1 lakh on the higher side.

The World Bank has approved a financial assistance of Rs. 929.89 crore for a water supply and sewerage project and the problem would be resolved once the project starts functioning.

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