Jammu: Ahead of summer season, people of Jammu have been suffering due to poor coordination between Civil and Mechanical wings of Public Health Engineering (now Jal Shakti Department) and outdated infrastructure to meet out the requirement of supply which led to the huge demand-supply gap in the water distribution system in Jammu.
Sources said that Jammu’s all water distribution sourced from 25-year-old Sheetli , Dhaunthali and Boria Filtration Plants, which failed to cater to the need for massive urbanization that took place in and around Jammu.
Officials said that from the last 10 to 15 years Jammu city has witnessed unprecedented growth and expansion. Many new colonies and commercial hubs came up but the basic infrastructure has not yet been upgraded.
“The government has constructed many overhead tanks and tube-wells but the infrastructure used to supply water from filtration plants to tube wells are still outdated and its water carrying capacity is very less than requirement,” an official said.
“We run pumps to lift water from the river for almost 20-22 hours a day and after treatment at filtration plants, sent it to respective tube-wells on 24X7 basis but still the demand supply gap exists,” the officer said adding, “Infrastructure is outdated and we can’t able to use the full potential of our machines, because the pipe network is insufficient and if we try to overburden it, it will burst”.
Another officer said that there is shortage of Junior Engineer and man force besides huge miscommunication between departments Civil- Mechanical wings.
“The mechanical wing responsible for lifting water from the river, its filtration and then supply to the tube-wells while civil wings have been responsible for judicious distribution of water to households and commercial consumers and collect revenue,” another officer said adding, “The civil wing of the department failed to share the data of population expansion and number of new connections”.
He also added that “The civil wing also failed to curb the illegal connection menace, which is rampant and always results in loss of revenue”.
“If data sharing between both these wings has been flawless, the government is able to know the exact data of supply and demand for further up-gradation of infrastructure,” the officer added. (KNO)
