A group of young volunteers went around the city recently and fitted taps at over 200 water collection points from where water flowed and was wasted, something common in Calcutta where water wastage is very high.

The volunteers visited areas where a lot of people go to the community water collection points to collect it in containers. The heads of many of these points did not have taps, while some others had broken or loose taps.

A volunteer said local people told them that the taps either got stolen or they broke in the course of natural wear and tear over the years. In some places, the volunteers found that local people had pushed a piece of cloth into the mouth of the collection point to prevent wastage, but there was still some leakage.

A large volume of water produced in the water treatment plants of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation is wasted.

“Water is a natural resource that we should not waste. Many of us are privileged to have access to clean water by just turning on the tap. But it is a limited resource and there are many who do not have access to clean water,” said Satnam Singh Ahluwalia, the chairman of the IHA Foundation, a philanthropic organisation whose volunteers fitted the taps.

“We visited places like Entally, Park Circus and Beniapukur between March 18 and 22 and fitted over 200 taps. We also gave the local people our numbers so that they contact us if they see any water collection point with a broken or missing tap,” said Ahluwalia.

Officials of the CMC have said that the civic body sends 488 million gallons of water into the city’s distribution system every day, but nearly half of it goes to waste or is unaccounted for. Water resources experts said about 250 million gallons of water should be adequate to meet Calcutta’s daily needs.

Unaccounted for water is the volume that is lost because of leaks in pipes. It is also the water that overflows from reservoirs in homes or from taps at community water collection points.

A project undertaken by the CMC has revealed that Calcuttans consume abnormally high volumes of water, far surpassing the limit set by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation. The limit is 150 litres per person per day in metropolitan cities.

As part of the project, the CMC installed water meters in wards 1 to 5 in north Calcutta to read the volume of water entering into houses. It was found that households were consuming up to 900 litres per day.

Water resources engineers have said that Calcutta still doesn’t feel the scarcity of water because the Hooghly flows along the city. But if the increasing use of water from the Hooghly for treatment to meet the city’s daily water needs is not controlled, a day will come when the scarcity would be felt.

“The water that is collected from the river is more turbid and saline than before. It is pushing up costs of treatment. A time will come when the treatment costs will become so high that the government will find it difficult to increase production. That will lead to water scarcity. So, it is time we stopped wasting water and used it judiciously,” said a water resources expert.