Water crisis: Lack of power back-up for tubewells to blame

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 29

“Lack of vision and planning” by officials of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is resulting in a water crisis in the city.

This can be gauged from the fact that there are no generators for power back-up at 238 tubewells in the city even though in a Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) meeting in 2013, members had recommended installing power generators for tubewells.

Whenever there is a power cut in areas where the tubewells have been installed, the water supply to the areas automatically stops.

Congress councillor and former chairman of the water supply committee of the MC Mukesh Bassi said in 2013, F&CC members had recommended installing of power generators, but to no avail. He said in 2012, during his visit to different tubewells in the city, he had found that operators were missing from the tubewells. Moreover, they were not starting the tubewells at 3 am.

A nominated councillor, Maj DS Sandhu (retd), chairman of the water supply committee of the MC, said it was a serious lapse on the part of MC officials and he would raise the issue at the next monthly MC House meeting.

The MC has provided generators only for the Kajauli waterworks, which are also low in capacity. As a result, in the case of a major power failure, the city receives only half of the total water supply from Kajauli.

At present, the water availability in the UT is 87 MGD. Of it, 67 MGD comes form the Kajauli canal while the remaining 20 MGD is generated through tubewells.