Ahmedabad spends Rs 1,800 per water link, Bengaluru Rs 19,000

AHMEDABAD: Just metering municipal water connections in a city does not guarantee efficient water use or reduce water wastage, argue economist and former planning commission member Y K Alagh and planner at Cept University, P Sampath. But proper water distribution through a designed pipe network backed by water accounting, efficient operation and maintenance can address accountability. In their recent research paper, presented at the sixteenth World Water Congress, the authors compare two cities, Bangalore, which has a near 99% metered water connections and Ahmedabad, where metered connections are in minuscule numbers.

In Ahmedabad, where 1,369 million litres of water (MLD) is supplied to citizens each day, there is a wide difference in distribution of water. For instance, Navrangpura, Paldi, SP Stadium, Chandkheda and Motera wards, which are under the West Zone, are supplied 278 MLD, the North Zone is supplied 207 MLD, South Zone 223MLD , the posh North West and South West zones combined get 278 MLD, according to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) water supply department.
The research emphasised the need for water audits. “Water audit provides information to control subsidy and to keep equity in distribution of water as a natural resource. Subsidy should be given to the poor only,” the paper says. It also added that for Ahmedabad and other Gujarat cities, the state government should declare water quantification mandatory and establish a control mechanism.
“Bengaluru has very limited groundwater because of its hilly topography; more than 900 MLD raw water is procured from the Cauvery, 97km away, and is pumped, treated and supplied at a cost of Rs 19,000 per connection, while in Ahmedabad, which draws its water from the Narmada canal 5km away, the cost comes to Rs 1,800 per connection,” the paper says.