Two Kolkatans complained to mayor Firhad Hakim on Saturday about water shortage and poor quality of water supplied in the neighbourhoods as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) continues to grapple with similar complaints from many parts of the city.
Mayor Firhad Hakim had last month asked councillors to report water shortage immediately, so that the KMC can take remedial measures to prevent escalation in the height of summer.
Hakim has also held meetings with officials and issued similar instructions to them.
Several pockets in the city — including Jadavpur, Kasba, Behala and Tollygunge — suffer water crisis every summer.
One of the callers — a resident of Biren Roy Road East in Behala — to the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor complained about water shortage.
Hearing his complaint, Hakim asked the chief engineer of the KMC’s water supply department to address the problem immediately. “Why should they have a problem? This neighbourhood is close to a booster pumping station. They should not have any water shortage issue,” Hakim said as the engineer nodded.
KMC sources had earlier told The Telegraph that residents who complain about water shortage mostly live in places far off from sources of water — a water treatment plant or a booster pumping station.
They said that in the absence of any tariff on water usage, homes closer to a source were consuming, and often wasting, a huge volume of water, leaving little volume of water for homes farther down the network.
The KMC is building booster pumping stations in many places — 37 stations have been built in the last three to four years — as a measure to solve the problem. The pumping stations also have reservoirs where water will be stored and pushed into the network with a greater thrust using high-powered pumps. This will take water to remote corners.
There is, however, a problem of inadequate production, too, a reason why the KMC is increasing the production capacity in the Dhapa water treatment plant and setting up a new plant in Briji (New Garia area).
The additional water is likely to meet the growing demands of Kasba, Jadavpur, Behala and Tollygunge. The two stations will take about two years to be ready.
The other caller, from Brahmapur Northern Park, Bansdroni, complained about the high iron content in the water they receive. He told Hakim that residents have been facing the problem for two years but the KMC has not been able to provide a solution.
Hakim told the caller they were receiving underground water, which is why the water could have high iron content.
KMC officials said underground water naturally contains iron and other impurities, which come up as the water is drawn up using pumps.
The surface water treated in treatment plants does not have iron and it also undergoes a better filtration mechanism to remove impurities.