Water Supply - Additional Inputs

Dear all:

Below are the Key Solutions (along with Issues and Root Causes as outlined by you) to improve the state of Water Supply in Urban India.

If you have any additional inputs, kindly respond to this post and identify your comment with a Prefix (Issue, Root Cause, Solution).

We will soon be compiling the whitepaper for submission to our Senior Leadership and a few other ministries associated with the subject.

Thanks for your participation!
Ministry of Urban Development

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Improving State of Water Supply - Solutions

1. There should be clear cut accountability of officials in Water Departments at all levels
2. No favouritism, or political interference in official work
3. There should be third party quality certification of completion of major projects
4. IT operated consumer grievance cell to redress the same timely
5. Sewage and water pipes should not go together
6. More water treatment plants should be set up
7. Supply of clean drinking water should be ensured to masses
8. The quality of the supply water should be checked using modern instruments after regular intervals
9. Leakage in pipelines should be quickly detected using computer systems and repaired
10. Request for new connections should be automated and made available on internet
11. Water bills should be subsidised
12. Crackdown should be made on people digging non-approved bore wells
13. Rain water harvesting should be adopted by all RWAs and societies
14. Overhead tanks should be installed in public toilets and water supply should be ensured
15. The ‘connecting rivers’ plan should be given momentum
16. The technology to convert sea water to drinking water should be gained and put in use immediately
17. Two kinds of water channels could be developed - one for drinking and cooking; the other for washing, watering plants might help bring equilibrium to the demand

State of Water Supply - Root Causes
1. Water supply has not been planned properly
2. Water pipes and sewage pipes overlap each other
3. The number of water treatment plants is not enough
4. Water treatment plants are technologically very old
5. Water pipelines are very old and weathered out
6. Leakage identification takes a long time
7. Most of the people do not understand the need of water management
8. Corrupt officials let the bore-wells get dug without official approval
9. Too much water is being pumped out of the ground by residents
10. Unauthorised water connections in slum areas leads to drop in water pressure in other areas
11. Most of our water distribution networks in urban areas are not available in a digital format, hence it is very difficult to keep track and do maintenance of these systems
12. Lack of long term plans or laxity in implementation of plans for augmenting water sources and pipe lines
13. Inefficient, poor maintenance network
14. Slow induction of latest technology

Water Supply – Key Issues

1. Water supply is erratic
2. Water supply becomes even worse in summers
3. Water is dirty and non-drinkable
4. This non-drinkable water causes a lot of water borne diseases
5. Pipelines are broken
6. A lot of water is wasted due to the leakage in the pipelines
7. Public water system has no control, water wastage due to taps left open for hours together
8. Sewer water gets mixed up with drinking water
9. Water bills are very high
10. Corruption at water boards to get new connections
11. Bore-wells being dug without any approval
12. Ground water levels are depleting and pumps are not able to fetch water
13. Many areas do not have any piped water supply
14. No water available in public toilets more