In a city where 30% of the houses
do not have tap water supply and almost half the houses which get tap water are
not charged, the project aims to offer 24x7 supply to all households. It also
plans to decrease the non-revenue houses to under 20% in five years.
All Indian cities face the
challenge of providing 24x7 water supply to its citizens. Un-billed households
and poor water quality only add to the problems. With its PPP model, Nagpur is
attempting to show the way.
In 2009, in an experiment under
JNNURM, the Nagpur Municipal Council (NMC) undertook a pilot project in Nagpur
providing 24x7 water supply to 10,000 households spread over 10 water
distribution zones. The project helped reduce non-revenue water connections
from 52% to 27%.
Encouraged by the project, in 2010, the NMC
decided to bring in a private operator to take care of the water supply,
infrastructure management and revenue collections. All water-related assets and
services were transferred to a new NMC subsidiary called Nagpur Environmental
Services Ltd. (NESL). The subsidiary then picked Orange City Water (OCW is a
50:50 joint venture between Vishvaraj Environment and French MNC Veolia) as the
operator for the project.
All the assets are owned by the
Urban Local Body (ULB) i.e. NMC and the tariff too is decided by it. The
operator has the responsibility to build, upgrade and maintain water
infrastructure in the city, ensure 24x7 water supply at certain quality levels,
issue bills and collect revenue from the users. It gets paid on the basis of
units of water it bills and collects. The project cost is estimated at around
450 crore, part of which comes from the JNNURM and Orange City chips in the balance.
- arun lakhani nagpur
- arun lakhani nagpur
2 comments:
Good & informative article!
I think this going to resolve water issues in many areas of Nagpur.
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