A part of Kolkata known for its water scarcity has many homes that are consuming water twice the national benchmark for consumption in urban areas.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which has installed water meters in five wards in Kasba, Jadavpur and Patuli, has found that the average water consumption of many households there is 300 litres per person per day.
The national water consumption benchmark for urban areas, set by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO), is 150 litres per person per day, said a KMC official.
In a handful of households in the five wards (101, 102, 107, 108 and 110) in Kasba, Jadavpur and Patuli, the daily consumption has been found to be as high as 800 litres per person per day.
Metro had reported in 2018 that the KMC found that several homes in five wards in Tallah and Cossipore were consuming 800 litres of water per person per day.
Water meters have been installed in the Cossipore-Tallah region, in north Kolkata, and the five wards on the southern fringes over the past year as part of the Asian Development Bank-funded Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Programme.
Officials said the reason for installing the water meters was to have an idea of the water consumption pattern and there was no plan to impose any tariff on the consumption, though that
may have prevented some wastage.
There is, however, an important difference between Cossipore-Tallah and the wards in Kasba, Patuli and Jadavpur.
The homes in Cossipore and Tallah are close to the giant reservoir in Tallah and the areas are not known to be suffering from water scarcity.
In contrast, multiple pockets in Kasba, Jadavpur and Patuli are known for water shortage. Long queues in front of community taps in the summer months is common in these pockets in southeast Kolkata.
Many residents from these places have called the mayor during the weekly phone-in programme “Talk to Mayor” to complain about water shortage.
Over 8,000 meters have been installed in five wards in Jadavpur, Kasba and Patuli.
The discovery that water consumption in most pockets of these five wards is more than the national consumption benchmark has come as a startling revelation to KMC officials.
“We have installed water meters in about 8,100 homes in wards 101, 102, 107, 108 and 110. The readings from the water meters show that the average water consumption is 300 litres per person per day,” said a senior official of the KMC.
“In some households, the consumption has been found to be as high as 800 litres per person per day. This is sheer wastage of water.”
KMC officials said an analysis of the water consumption in the households where meters have been installed showed that homes closer to the source of water — a water treatment plant, a reservoir or a booster pumping station — were wasting more water than others.
The farther a house is from the source of water, the lower is the wastage.
“There are some pockets where water supply has been found to be less than the national standard mentionedby the CPHEEO,” said anofficial.
“These are homes that are quite some distance away from the source of potable water. The high consumption by households closer to the source leaves little water for the ones away from the source,” the KMC officialsaid.
Civic officials said the five wards in Kasba, Patuli and Jadavpur where water meters have been installed get potable water from water treatment plants in Garden Reach and Dhapa.
“We are augmenting the capacity of the Dhapa water treatment plant and setting up a treatment plant in New Garia. The additional water to be produced in these two plants will meet the needs of places that are now reeling under water shortage,” said the official.
Aditi Mukherji, whoresearches on water issues, said 300-litre-per-person-per-day consumption was notvery high, but 800 litres per person per day was “worrying”.
“The authorities should ensure fair distribution of water. I believe water consumption could be higher in places where the economically well-off people live. It is usually found that people living in informal settlements have to do with less than places where high-income-group people live,” said Mukherji, who was one of the authors of AR6 Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an United Nations body, published in 2023. The report summarises the state of knowledge of climate change, its widespread impacts and risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.