Inspectors from the water supply department of the Municipal Corporation Municipal Corporation (KMC) will identify zones where water wastage was maximum and suggest corrective steps to prevent loss of filtered drinking water.
“Our main focus will be to ensure that drinking water reaches all houses. We will reduce the size of the ferrule to avoid waste,” mayor Firhad Hakim said on Saturday.
“Filtered drinking water cannot go waste. We would urge families using underground tanks to use ball cocks to prevent overflow of water,” he said.
Several parts of Kolkata are yet to receive filtered drinking water that the civic body supplies because the network has not yet been established from the nearest water pumping stations.
Senior officials of the water supply department said the demand for supply of filtered water was going up but complaints of waste have also started pouring in.
The civic body sends 488 gallons of water in the city’s distribution system every day but nearly half of it goes to waste, senior KMC officials said.
Water resources experts said about 250 million gallons of water should be adequate to meet Kolkata’s daily needs.
“We have enough water to cater to most of the city. But the unfortunate part is the wastage of filtered drinking water. Apart from arranging for supply of filtered drinking water, it will be the primary responsibility of the water supply department to prevent waste of this water,” Hakim said.
“We will install taps to ensure water doesn’t get wasted from pipes. Sometimes these taps are broken to ensure greater flow of water resulting in wastage. We will close the stand posts in areas where the taps are deliberately broken.”
A recent project undertaken by the KMC revealed that Kolkatans consume abnormally high volumes of water, far surpassing the national consumption.
