THANE: The Thane municipal corporation will rejuvenate old wells and use them as an alternate source of water supply to the parched city in the coming days, municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar informed, Monday.
The initiative to tap the age-old source of water is seen as a desperate stop-gap arrangement to cater to the increasing needs and reducing dependency on municipal water in the chief minister’s city where several localities still continue to get inadequate water supply.
The proposal was floated by Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik before chief minister Eknath Shinde who approved the same following which the state will finance Rs 50 cr for the project that will filter the water and make it usable for neighbouring localities, Bangar said.
Vinod Pawar, in-charge of the water supply department at the Thane corporation confirmed the developments and said the tendering process for the project has begun along with a five year maintenance tenure. The approximate volume of water that will be available for use is being worked out, said officials.
Sarnaik explained saying these 67 wells located within the Majiwada-Manpada and Vartak Nagar wards have been identified following which they will be cleaned, dredged and their natural springs will be activated. Simultaneously, the corporation will repair the walls of these water bodies and also concretise the periphery to strengthen it. In addition, grills will be installed over the structures and sewage lines draining into these wells will be plugged.
“Once these structural repairs and revamp is done, we will install solar-powered purifiers atop these units that will filter the water which can be used for non-potable purposes like flushing and gardening among others. We will analyse the situation and connect these wells to the neighbouring localities if required at a later stage. These natural water bodies were being neglected for years and used for dumping trash and so we thought of optimising its water,” said Bangar.
It may be noted that Thane city with a population of nearly 25 lakhs gets 585mld water but the supply surprisingly falls short of meeting the demands leaving residents especially from Ghodbunder, Diva to the mercy of tanker mafia.
