No desilting of Mumbai’s water sources done in past 10 years, greens upset

Mumbai: In a shocking development, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has admitted that no desilting has been done at its main drinking water supplying lakes and reservoirs for the past ten years which gives misleading data of water capacities, activists said based on data obtained under Right to Information Act (RTI).

Information obtained from BMC by environment watchdog NatConnect Foundation shows that there has been no desilting done at Vihar, Tulsi, Modak Sagar, Tansa and Middle Vaitarna over the past decade.

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.

NatConnect filed the RTI application seeking information on the desilting works and the money spent in view of the experience for several years that the dams and lakes overflow during the monsoon months and yet the city faces water cuts during the summer months.

The piling up of the silt at 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, said NatConnect Director B N Kumar, in a press statement.

This also leads to the multi-crore water tanker mafia racket ruling the city and suburbs, the activist said.

Kumar filed the RTI application with the State Urban Development Department to know the status of desilting operation by the BMC.

“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?”.

Kumar is, however, happy that the RTI application was referred to the BMC.

The information officer at BMC’s Ghatkopar Water Works responded saying that the Main supply line (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.

In a related response the MGCM Hydraulic Engineer’s department at Kapurwadi, Thane, said “as per this office record no desilting work (was) done in the lakes/reservoirs of Modaksagar, Tansa and Middle Vaitarna” in the last ten years.

Concurring with the need to desilt the lakes, Nandakumar Pawar, head of environment focused NGO Shri Ekvira Ari Pratishtan, said the absence of desilting is one of the main causes of overflowing of dams and the resultant floods in the rivers. 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.

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.