Question : WATER AUDIT AND WATER CONSERVATION

(a) whether the Government is preparing a draft guidelines for Water Audit and Water Conservation in three areas of water use i.e. domestic, irrigation and industrial;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) the outcome of the draft in respect of West Bengal for distribution of water and recovery of costs;

(d) the amount of water produced and delivered for metered and unmetered users separately in West Bengal;

(e) the amount of total water loss through leakages in West Bengal; and

(f) the preventive steps the Government is taking to address such losses?

THE MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) FOR HEAVY INDUSTRIES, PUBLIC ENTERPRISES AND WATER RESOURCES (SHRI SONTOSH MOHAN DEV)


(a) & (b) Ministry of Water Resources organized a National Workshop on Water Audit and Water Conservation on 30th January, 2004 at New Delhi. Based on the recommendations of this Workshop, a General Guidelines for Water Audit and Water Conservation covering domestic, irrigation and industrial uses have been drafted. The draft General Guidelines on Water Audit and Water Conservation have been circulated to various State Governments and concerned departments of the Central Government for their comments/suggestions.

(c) As per information furnished by the Government of West Bengal and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), Guidelines for distribution of water and recovery of costs have not been drafted for West Bengal.

(d) The supply of water for irrigation purpose has not been metered. However, the KMC have implemented partial metering of water supply. In Kolkata, 4.4 million gallons per day (MGD) of delivered water is metered whereas 213.6 MGD water is unmetered.


(e) & (f) KMC has reported the result of a study which indicates unaccounted loss for water as about 35%. Preventive steps taken by KMC are as under:

# KMC has taken some decisions to refurbish century old riveted mild steel (MS) pipe and cast iron (CI) service main pipe. Replacement of damaged CI service main pipes is being done in phases.

# KMC is monitoring and repairing the leakages in pipelines quickly and also repairing the pumps in pumping stations.

# To arrest the wastage of water from stand posts, steps have been taken to install turncock in each stand posts where sufficient supply of water is available. Already a considerable quantity of turncock have been fitted in some stand posts.

# KMC have already restricted the erection of stand post further.

# KMC have already introduced Bulk Meters to the bulk consumers.

# KMC have replaced about 100 numbers of air valves and regular repairing of air valves is going on by departmental staff to arrest leakages through air valves.