Pictures by Bishwarup Dutta

“I congratulate and thank them for this wonderful work. It shows that people are becoming aware about the need to conserve water. It is also the focus of the state government and the corporation,” he said.

The mayor said he had told CMC engineers to ensure that all stand post hydrants had taps. “Taps had been installed in Chetla earlier but they were stolen,” he said.

Agarwal, who owns a tours and travel business, said he first noticed the wastage of water in December. “I go to drop my son to school in Chetla every morning. I would see water flowing from the taps and going down the drain along Rakhal Auddy Road every morning,” he said.

“I don’t know for how long the water was getting wasted but it caught my eye towards the end of last year.”

The businessman had for long been planning to install taps and stop the wastage of water, but his thoughts didn’t translate into action till Sunday morning.

“My eyes fell on the taps on Wednesday and I decided it was time I did something. I shared my idea with my friend Ajay and he readily agreed to help,” Agarwal said.

Birendra Adhikary, the storeowner from whom Agarwal bought the taps, too, chipped in. Adhikary offered each tap for Rs 50 instead of Rs 70.

“This is my way of contributing. A few years ago I had installed a tap on a stand post hydrant on the same road when I saw water being wasted,” Adhikary said.

Metro had reported in May 2018 how water meters installed in Cossipore had revealed huge wastage. The national per capita consumption of water, calculated by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation, is 135 litres a day. In houses where meters have been installed, civic officials have found the daily per capita consumption to be around 600 litres and up to 800 litres per person per day in some houses.

A civic official said on Sunday that the corporation supplied 405 million gallons of water every day, but the city’s population should not need more than 200 million gallons. “No one knows where the water is going,” he said.

Two men spent Sunday morning installing taps on 12 stand post hydrants in Chetla from where water would flow all day and get wasted at a time when cities are running dry.

Bhowanipore resident Vijay Agarwal takes Rakhal Auddy Road to drop his sons to school and sees water getting wasted every morning. He decided to do his bit and spent over Rs 1,300 to buy 12 taps and hire a plumber.

Impressed by the cause, the owner of the store from where Agarwal bought the taps gave him Rs 20 concession for each tap.

Agarwal took his friend Ajay Mittal along for the work on Sunday. Residents of Rakhal Auddy Road were surprised to see two young men fixing the taps — a job the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) had overlooked for years

Mayor Firhad Hakim, who is the councillor of Chetla, congratulated the duo and thanked them for their work.