The News Review:

- 24/7 water supply: BMC is inept
- Santa Clara County, Calif., officials say water supply is stable, for…
- Siruvani level dips, water supply comes down
- KARACHI: Blame game in KWSB as water crisis continues

24/7 water supply: BMC is inept
Times of India – Jun 2, 2007
Butin little over a month, the company tweaked the report and presented a revisedone. Now, additional municipal commissioner Manu Kumar Srivastava, in-charge ofwater supply, says a second revision is under preparation to be presented tostake-holders (locals and elected representatives) over the weekend. The secondreport, while lauding the water supply system in Mumbai as the best in SouthAsia and that in the K-East ward comparable to London and Germany, however,states that the BMC on its own is incapable of implementing the upgradingprojects and it would be the worst option to opt for. Interestingly, theconsultants did not find a single case of contamination though tests wereconducted twice. The second time, on the insistence of theBMC. “The BMC does not lackfinancial resources or smart well-qualified engineers. If the current BMCsystems were capable of achieving desired improvements in K-East, they wouldhave already achieved them,” reads the report…
Interestingly, theconsultants did not find a single case of contamination though tests wereconducted twice. The second time, on the insistence of theBMC. “The BMC does not lackfinancial resources or smart well-qualified engineers. If the current BMCsystems were capable of achieving desired improvements in K-East, they wouldhave already achieved them,” reads the report. Pointing out the reasons for itsconclusions it states that major infrastructure works are not well integratedwith operations andmaintenance. “The system forprocuring infrastructure projects tends to be slow, fragmented and is notfocused on achieving the best quality results over the medium term. The managersat the ward level have little autonomy and resources to implement newapproaches, no incentives for customer-responsiveness and service and there isan attachment to traditional ways of working,” said thereport.

Santa Clara County, Calif., officials say water supply is stable, for…
Free with registration – The Dispatch – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jun 2, 2007
, officials say water supply is stable, for now. 2–State officials turned off the spigots of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Thursday, cutting off a fifth of Santa Clara County’s water supply to save an endangered fish.

Siruvani level dips, water supply comes down
Hindu – Jun 2, 2007
This has brought down the supply of drinking water to the city, officials of the Coimbatore Corporation said during an inspection of the dam on Friday. Scheme When the scheme was implemented in 1931, it provided for a supply of 101 million litres a day (mld) for the city and suburbs. Of this, 87 mld was set aside for the city and the rest for the suburbs. The plunging water level in the dam now had led to the total drawal being cut to 70 mld. Of this, only around 55 mld was being supplied to the city…
The plunging water level in the dam now had led to the total drawal being cut to 70 mld. Of this, only around 55 mld was being supplied to the city. Monsoon “We still have water to make a comfortable supply and the monsoon will set in any moment,” Mayor R. Venkatachalam said after visiting the dam. Karthik, other councillors and officials accompanied him. An additional pipeline would be laid to bring water from the dam to the city.

KARACHI: Blame game in KWSB as water crisis continues
Pakistan Dawn – Jun 2, 2007
As the blame game between these key departments continues, the ultimate sufferers of this absurd situation are the consumers, who have to live with little or scant water supply in the current sultry weather. Power breakdowns, which occurred twice at the Hub pumping station recently, have also badly affected the water supply position of almost the entire city. Some of the hardest hit areas included Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Mehmoodabad, Manzoor Colony, Federal B Area, Clifton, Ramswami, Ranchore Line, Baghdadi, Kalri, Nawabad and Daryabad. Residents complained that whenever they succeed in getting hold of the chief engineers or the executive engineers of their respective zones, they (engineers) simply shifted the blame to the officials of the WTM division. The complainants were told that the volume of water supplied was much less than the quota, hence the engineers were unable to ensure a judicious supply in their respective zones. POWER FAILIURE: The KWSB Chief Engineer (Electrical and Mechanical), Gulzar Memon, admitted that the city on Friday suffered a shortfall of 24 million gallons of water owing to the non-availability of electricity twice at the Hub pumping station.