Garad inspected the present water level at the dam and the ongoing construction work.
Pen / Raigad / Navi Mumbai: Local corporator Leena Garad recently visited the Hetwane Dam in Pen, Raigad, on 4th June 2022, to check the viability and progress of the work, that the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) said, was underway.
Garad had visited the dam to check the water reserves and also to inspect the work being done by CIDCO to ensure adequate water supply to all the nodes in the region.
Readers must be aware that there has been extreme scarcity of potable water in Kharghar, Taloja, Kamothe and Panvel for the last four months, forcing residential societies to buy water from private water suppliers. The situation has also boosted the sale of bottled water as the water supplied through water tankers has been found unfit for drinking.
Garad shared the following findings with us:
Hetwane Dam has sufficient water even now
Garad surprisingly informed that the water levels were sufficient enough to meet the needs of all nodes from Kharghar to Panvel.
“To start with, I want to clear the general misunderstanding of the residents of our region – There is no visible scarcity of water in the Hetwane dam. Even now, in the scorching weather that is dwindling water reserves everywhere, the dan has enough water to cater to the entire region. So frankly, the whole understanding of the residents that water is scarce, is not true at all. We seem to have enough water till the monsoon arrives.”
Watch: Corporator Leena Garad visits Hetwane Dam in Paned, Raigad
Open running channel cause of low pressure of supply
Garad further shared a startling fact concerning an open running water channel at the dam area.
“There is an open channel across the CIDCO pump room at the dam, which has been flushing away hundreds of thousands of litres of water on a daily basis. It is owing to such that there is always a low pressure of water supply, which has been one of the main issues that CIDCO has been quoting since years. However, none of the authorities have eve informed anyone about the running water channel till now.”
“Can you imagine the situation? When the entire region is thirsting for water, there is an untapped water channel that gushes thousands of litres of precious every day, also accounting to the low pressure in supply lines.”
The modifications at the dam could have been done years ago
Garad blamed the administration for delaying the matter for years without any rational explanation ever given to the residents.
“It is plainly visible that there was no scarcity of water. Frankly, with a little bit of timely modifications like the one being made now, would have ensured sufficient and regular water supply to region. So why did the administration and the development authority never think about it in all these years?”
“CIDCO has been promising uninterrupted water supply, year after year since 2013, but has not been able to provide as promised. None of the nodes like Kharghar, Kamothe and Taloja have ever received sufficient water supply on a regular basis. Taloja has a different level of water issues altogether.”
“There has always been water scarcity in more than a couple of sectors in all of these nodes. This simply points out to the shoddy planning of the development authority and blatant non-implementation of work by the administration.”
Garad is now waiting to see if CIDCO fulfills the newly made promises of regularising water supply to all deprived nodes in the region once the ongoing work gets completed.
“We are hopeful that the ongoing work at the Hetwane dam will solve a major part of the issue by helping channelize a major quantity of water that was wasting away. However, more permanent solutions have to be worked upon for the ever growing population and their growing need for potable water,” Garad concluded.
