Kolhapur: Around 35% of the water lifted from Panchganga river by the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) is lost in distribution, shows an internal study carried out by the hydraulics department of the civic body.
The KMC lifts around 120 million litre of water from various pumping stations and a large amount of it is lost starting from the water treatment plants itself. The rest is lost due to leakages to the underground pipelines. These pipelines are rusted for the past several years and most of the leakages continue to go undetected.
This summer, the level of Radhanagari dam is depleting rapidly due to excess pumping especially for irrigation purposes. Hence, the water resources department (WRD) has decided to stop pumping for three days from the Radhanagari dam to Shingnapur barrage stretch of the Panchganga river. The farmers are not allowed to pump water from the remaining stretch — Shingnapur Barrage to Shirol — as well.
This move has upset the farmers as the ban has been imposed for the first time in decades. They are now demanding that lifting of water by the towns and cities should be restricted and rationing should be imposed in the civic areas rather than imposing ban as the move will affect the crops.
A senior official from the KMC has spoken with the WRD officials who are insisting on plugging the losses at any cost as the depleting stock in the dams is worrisome.
The official, while speaking to TOI, said, “We apprised the WRD officials about the steps being taken to bring down loss of water. A special machine that uses vibration frequency will be used to detect the leakages in underground pipelines. Since in most of the cases, water precipitates downwards instead of showing on the surface it is difficult to find the stretch of the pipeline to find out the exact spot. The second thing we are doing is re-circulating the water leaking from the treatment plants back into the system.”
Meanwhile, farmers and water activists in rural areas will stage a one-day sit-in outside the Sinchan Bhavan in Kolhapur city on Monday to protest against the ban on lifting of water.
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