Pumping hit, Shimla to face water shortage

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 16

Shimla is likely to face water shortage for a week or so due to inadequate pumping from the Gumma scheme, the main supply source of the city.

According to Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited (SJPNL), the company that procures and supplies water in the city, the electricity transformer at the water scheme is malfunctioning for over the past couple of days and the Electricity Department has sought at least eight to 10 days to fix the problem. “The transformer has burnt out and the Electricity Department requires eight to 10 days to fix the problem. Until then, there will be a shortage of six million litres of water every day,” said Anil Jaswal, AGM of SJPNL.

The SJPNL needs to pump 45 million litres of water every day to meet the demand of the city. On Wednesday, the city received just 36.67 million litres, a shortfall of around nine million litres. The Gumma water scheme, which has been pumping around 20 million litres per day before the snag, provided just 10.97 million litres, leading to the significant shortfall.

Besides disturbing supply, the shortage has affected the distribution timing, too. People in a few places in the city got water supply after midnight a day before yesterday. “That’s an exceptional incident. As we had a problem at the source, it caused some issues in distribution as well. It will be fixed in a day or two,” said Jaswal.

The water shortage will be felt even more as all schools have reopened and people, who had left the city for their villages during the pandemic, have returned, increasing the demand for water. “The water demand has certainly increased, but we can meet it once we again start pumping around 45 million litres per day,” said Jaswal.

However, good news on the water front is that the sources are well charged this time, thanks to good snowfall and rain this winter. “There’s a plenty of water in our sources. If we have regular rainfall, we don’t see any water issue during the summer,” he said.

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