The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) will provide new domestic water connections along with water meters, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday.
Hakim was speaking on how installation of water meters in six wards in Cossipore, in north Calcutta, had reduced water wastage.
A senior CMC official said the mayor made the statement for the first time on Friday and the civic authorities would now have to work on the proposal.
“We will give new water connections with water meters,” Hakim said.
But the mayor added that the CMC would not tax Calcuttans for water consumption. The civic body will not impose a penalty on families or individuals who are found wasting potable water beyond a limit.
“We will not tax anyone. We will not impose any penalty. We have to find some other method to stop water wastage,” Hakim said.
“The CMC produces 515 million gallons of potable water every day. This should be enough for the city of Calcutta, but there is abundant wastage of water. We have to stop this,” Hakim said.
The mayor, as well senior officials of the civic body, said 150 litres of water per
person per day should be enough.
The CMC spends about Rs 700 crore to produce potable water. Production of more potable water will call for more expenditure.
“The additional money spent on water would result in reduction of the allotment for infrastructure work such as lights or roads,” the mayor said.
Hakim said a project to install water meters in Cossipore — 18,655 meters were installed — had yielded good results.
“We have been able to cut down wastage of non-revenue water by 52 per cent,” Hakim said.
“In one case, we found that a family of five was consuming 3,000 litres of water every day. When our engineers visited the household, they found a leak in the water tank,”he said.
Engineers of the civic body have said that water overflowing from reservoirs, leaks in storage tanks in houses and apartment blocks and leaks in distribution lines of the CMC were the main causes of water wastage in Calcutta.
The mayor said he would make a personal appeal to Calcuttans to stop wastage of water.
The CMC, Hakim said, will install more water meters in homes across the city. The idea is to find out how wastage can be controlled.