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The Minister for Urban Development & Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad has said that there is a need to create additional storage capacity to prevent the surface water from going waste as only 213 billion cubic meter out of 690 billion cubic meter of surface water is currently stored. He was addressing the delegates at the Eleventh Annual Convention of Indian Building Congress & Seminar on “Water Management in Urban Centres” here today.
He said that a study by Ministry of Urban Development has found that average piped water supply per day is available only for 1-1/2 hour in Chennai, 1-1/2 to 2 hrs in Hyderabad, 2-1/2 hrs in Bangalore and 5 hrs in Mumbai indicating that the poor in slums and squatters are deprived of safe potable water. Shri Azad also said that the water loss due to leakage, pilferage & wastage amounts to as high as 50% of the total flow and called for systematic approach to check water loss.
Shri Azad also said that the problem facing the urban water supply is not just inadequacy of resources but is the need for better management of assets created and efficient utilization of water available in the system. “ While institutional and structural reforms are being encouraged and incentivized by the centre, there is a need to create awareness among public on conservation of water & prevention of wastage”, he added. Shri Azad underlined the need to make water and power conservation as part of school curriculum from primary to secondary levels. He also emphasised the need to make rain water harvesting mandatory in private as well as public building and vacant urban lands.
The minister announced that the proposed National Urban Renewal Mission envisages incentivising,leveraging and supporting of reform efforts of states and ULBs in order to ensure universal access to services in our cities and towns.
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