<p>Mumbai: The drinking water reservoirs overflow data could be highly misleading as the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai’s drinking water sources have not been desilted at least for over 10 years, according to information obtained by NatConnect Foundation. </p><p>NatConnect, therefore, sought to know from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) the details of the desilting done in their respective water reservoirs.</p>.Rising temperatures and extreme weather hit Asia hard: WMO.<p>The Urban Development Department (UDD) too does not have any details of desalting operations. </p><p>BMC informed NatConnect Foundation that there has been no desilting done at Vihar, Tulsi, Modak Sagar, Tansa and Middle Vaitarna over the past decade.</p><p>This explains for the water cuts from April-May onward, though the dams and lakes “overflow” during the monsoon months and water cuts, NatConnect director B N Kumar said.</p><p>Kumar said there was, however, no word from the BMC on desilting of the remaining two lakes - Bhatsa and Upper Vaitarna. The seven lakes and reservoirs together supply a total of 3.4 billion litres of drinking water to the city, daily.</p><p>As regards Navi Mumbai, the NMMC-owned Morbe dam is the source of drinking water. The 88-meter high dam supplies 450 million litres of water daily to the city.</p><p>In response to NatConnect query, Maruti Ambedkar, Deputy Engineer at Morbe Dam, informed that there has been no desiltation at all at the project ever since it was handed over to the NMMC body.</p><p>The piling up of the silt in the bottom of the lakes and reservoirs obviously leads to misleading data and even complacency that everything is hunky-dory on the waterfront, whereas the people are forced to go for water tanker supply, Kumar said.</p><p>This also leads to the multi-crore water tanker mafia racket ruling the city and suburbs, the activist said.</p><p>Looking at the messy water supply, Kumar filed the RTI application with the State UDD to know the status of desilting operation by the BMC.</p><p>“To our utter shock, the UDD informed us that it does not have any such record”, Kumar said and argued that the State headquarters ought to monitor the essential service such as drinking water supply. He asked: “aren’t they supposed to plan resources when the cities are rapidly expanding?”.</p><p>Kumar is, however, happy that the TI application was referred to the BMC.</p><p>The information officer at BMC’s Ghatkopar Water Works responded saying that the Main Trunk there handles supply from Vihar and Tulsi lakes and there has been no desilting work undertaken at these water bodies. There is, therefore, no question of any money spent on this work, the response signed by assistant engineer and information officer Peter Rodrigues said.</p><p>In a related response the MGCM Hydraulic Engineer’s department at Kapurbawdi, Thane, said “as per this office record no desilting work (was) done in the lakes/reservoirs of Modaksagar, Tansa & Middle Vaitarna” in the last ten years.</p><p>Kumar pointed out that it is no rocket science that desilting is needed to maintain the water holding capacity of lakes and reservoirs. In fact, BMC allocated about Rs 250 crores for desilting of the city’s drains as part of the monsoon preparedness of this year, he said.</p><p>As regards Navi Mumbai, Morbe dam is not being desilted despite the fact that accumulation of silt in reservoirs / water bodies leads to reduction of their water storage capacity, information received under the RTI Act shows.</p><p>Kumar pointed out that even the Centre has told the Lok Sabha that rivers pickup, carry and drop silt load as per their regime conditions - discharge in the river, river slope, morphology, nature of silt etc. The accumulation of silt in reservoirs / water bodies leads to reduction of their water storage capacity, the government informed the House in April last year.</p><p>“Municipal corporations spend crores of rupees on desilting their storm water drains and water bodies. But they seem to ignore this aspect as far as the drinking water sources are concerned,” Kumar said, asking if the mountain streams and rivers do not carry sand into the reservoirs.</p><p>The Central Pollution Control Board has in fact noted that several metro cities such as Mumbai and Chennai have witnessed unprecedented flooding in recent years.</p><p>Inadequacies of flood protection works, reduction in the water holding capacity of natural reservoirs in the basin due to progressive siltation, breaching of riverbanks, raising of riverbed caused by deposition of silt are among the reasons, the CPCB noted in its “Indicative Guidelines for Restoration of Water Bodies” published five years ago, Kumar said.</p><p>The sludge collected from the bottom of the reservoirs is rich in minerals and it could be utilised to strengthen the topsoil of farm lands, Kumar pointed out.</p><p>Erosion of topsoil is one of the major problems the agricultural fields are facing, and this dredged soil could be of great help to mitigate the crisis, he said.</p>
<p>Mumbai: The drinking water reservoirs overflow data could be highly misleading as the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai’s drinking water sources have not been desilted at least for over 10 years, according to information obtained by NatConnect Foundation. </p><p>NatConnect, therefore, sought to know from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) the details of the desilting done in their respective water reservoirs.</p>.Rising temperatures and extreme weather hit Asia hard: WMO.<p>The Urban Development Department (UDD) too does not have any details of desalting operations. </p><p>BMC informed NatConnect Foundation that there has been no desilting done at Vihar, Tulsi, Modak Sagar, Tansa and Middle Vaitarna over the past decade.</p><p>This explains for the water cuts from April-May onward, though the dams and lakes “overflow” during the monsoon months and water cuts, NatConnect director B N Kumar said.</p><p>Kumar said there was, however, no word from the BMC on desilting of the remaining two lakes - Bhatsa and Upper Vaitarna. The seven lakes and reservoirs together supply a total of 3.4 billion litres of drinking water to the city, daily.</p><p>As regards Navi Mumbai, the NMMC-owned Morbe dam is the source of drinking water. The 88-meter high dam supplies 450 million litres of water daily to the city.</p><p>In response to NatConnect query, Maruti Ambedkar, Deputy Engineer at Morbe Dam, informed that there has been no desiltation at all at the project ever since it was handed over to the NMMC body.</p><p>The piling up of the silt in the bottom of the lakes and reservoirs obviously leads to misleading data and even complacency that everything is hunky-dory on the waterfront, whereas the people are forced to go for water tanker supply, Kumar said.</p><p>This also leads to the multi-crore water tanker mafia racket ruling the city and suburbs, the activist said.</p><p>Looking at the messy water supply, Kumar filed the RTI application with the State UDD to know the status of desilting operation by the BMC.</p><p>“To our utter shock, the UDD informed us that it does not have any such record”, Kumar said and argued that the State headquarters ought to monitor the essential service such as drinking water supply. He asked: “aren’t they supposed to plan resources when the cities are rapidly expanding?”.</p><p>Kumar is, however, happy that the TI application was referred to the BMC.</p><p>The information officer at BMC’s Ghatkopar Water Works responded saying that the Main Trunk there handles supply from Vihar and Tulsi lakes and there has been no desilting work undertaken at these water bodies. There is, therefore, no question of any money spent on this work, the response signed by assistant engineer and information officer Peter Rodrigues said.</p><p>In a related response the MGCM Hydraulic Engineer’s department at Kapurbawdi, Thane, said “as per this office record no desilting work (was) done in the lakes/reservoirs of Modaksagar, Tansa & Middle Vaitarna” in the last ten years.</p><p>Kumar pointed out that it is no rocket science that desilting is needed to maintain the water holding capacity of lakes and reservoirs. In fact, BMC allocated about Rs 250 crores for desilting of the city’s drains as part of the monsoon preparedness of this year, he said.</p><p>As regards Navi Mumbai, Morbe dam is not being desilted despite the fact that accumulation of silt in reservoirs / water bodies leads to reduction of their water storage capacity, information received under the RTI Act shows.</p><p>Kumar pointed out that even the Centre has told the Lok Sabha that rivers pickup, carry and drop silt load as per their regime conditions - discharge in the river, river slope, morphology, nature of silt etc. The accumulation of silt in reservoirs / water bodies leads to reduction of their water storage capacity, the government informed the House in April last year.</p><p>“Municipal corporations spend crores of rupees on desilting their storm water drains and water bodies. But they seem to ignore this aspect as far as the drinking water sources are concerned,” Kumar said, asking if the mountain streams and rivers do not carry sand into the reservoirs.</p><p>The Central Pollution Control Board has in fact noted that several metro cities such as Mumbai and Chennai have witnessed unprecedented flooding in recent years.</p><p>Inadequacies of flood protection works, reduction in the water holding capacity of natural reservoirs in the basin due to progressive siltation, breaching of riverbanks, raising of riverbed caused by deposition of silt are among the reasons, the CPCB noted in its “Indicative Guidelines for Restoration of Water Bodies” published five years ago, Kumar said.</p><p>The sludge collected from the bottom of the reservoirs is rich in minerals and it could be utilised to strengthen the topsoil of farm lands, Kumar pointed out.</p><p>Erosion of topsoil is one of the major problems the agricultural fields are facing, and this dredged soil could be of great help to mitigate the crisis, he said.</p>