Public Health Engineering Activity In Maharashtra State

In Maharashtra, the State Government bas undertaken an ambitious programme to provide clean and potable water in adequate quantity to both the Urban and Rural population. It has now become the most important duty of a Municipal Council in the Urban area or a. Grampanchayat in a rural area to first set up a safe, clean and adequate public water supply system. Where water supply is adequate, underground drainage systems are also being provided.

There are in all 221 Municipal Councils and four Corporations having a total population of 157.03 lakhs (as per 1971 census) in Maharashtra. At the end of the Third Five Year Plan i. e. on 31-3-1967 four Corporations and 99 Municipal Councils were having piped water supply facilities. The work on piped water supply schemes was continued in subsequent annual plans also. At the beginning of the Fourth Five Year Plan, 117 towns had water supply facilities, while in case of 51 towns new water supply schemes were in progress and augmentation schemes were in progress in 39 towns leaving 57 towns without water supply facilities.

The State Government has drawn up a programme to complete or atleast start work on water supply schemes of all the urban areas before the end of the Fourth Five Year Plan on 31-3-1974.

By the end of the first two years of the Fourth Five Year Plan i. c. by 31st March 1971, 138 Municipal towns have been provided with piped water supply schemes, and piped water supply schemes in 54 Lew towns and improvement schemes in 41 towns are in progress. Thus, there will be only 33 Municipal towns where piped water supply schemes are to be taken up in the remaining 2 years of the Fourth Five Year Plan.

In the Fourth Five Year Plan, a sum of Rs. 1170 lakhs is likely to be available for water supply and drainage schemes, out of which Rs. 540 lakhs are for Government Water Supply Schemes and Rs. 630 lakhs are for grant-in-aid for water supply and of the Municipal drainage schemes Councils. Besides, grant-in-aid from the State Government, loans from the L. I. C. of India are also made available to the

Municipal Councils for their water supply and drainage schemes. These amounts do not include any provisions for the four Municipal Corporations in the State.

Municipal Corporations

For solving the problem of water supply to the City and industries in and around the City, the Bombay Municipal Corporation has drawn up an integrated scheme for distribution of water made available from Vaitarna and Bhatsai Projects. An outlay of Rs. 35.07 crores will be provided by the Corporation for the implementation of the distribution project during the Fourth Five Year Plan. In addition, an outlay of Rs. 12.48 crores has been included in the State's Plan for the headworks under the Bhatsai Project which is being executed by the State Government.

In Poona, the Parvati filtered water supply scheme has been taken up by Government as a deposit work of the Poona Municipal Corporation. The first Stage of the scheme costing Rs. 110 lakhs has been completed and it supplies 24 MGD of water to Municipal Council area. Further augmentation of the filtration plant capacity by 35 MGD and other works estimated to cost Rs. 223 lakhs are in advanced stage of construction.

In Nagpur, with the completion of the Wunna water supply scheme, the water supply of Nagpur Corporation has increased from 24.5 MGD to 27.5 MGD. The

Corporation has also undertaken a scheme for reorienting its distribution system.

The Improvement Scheme costing Rs. 300 lakhs having Bhima River as its source for water supply to Sholapur Municipal Corporation has been completed. The work of augmenting the distribution system in the city has been taken up in stages by the State Government as deposit works on behalf of the Corporation. Part costing Rs. 16 lakhs has been already completed and additional works costing Rs. 61 lakhs are under consideration.

M. I. D. C. Schemes

The Maharashtra Industrial Develop ment Corporation (M. I. D. C.) has completed Shahad water supply scheme estimated to cost Rs. 111.61 lakhs, for meeting the growing needs of water of the industries in

Kalyan, Bhiwandi and Dombivli areas and also of the Kalyan, Ulhasnagar and Dombivali towns. The Turade water supply scheme. including its extension has been executed at a cost of Rs. 303 lakhs to meet the demand of the industries in Trans-Thana and Kalwa Areas. It has taken a more ambitious project viz. Barvi water supply scheme to meet the growing demand of water for industries in TransThana Creek, Dombivali, Ambernath etc. industrial areas. In all, it has 6 water supply schemes estimated to cost Rs. 1670 lakhs in progress and the capital outlay on water supply schemes is expe cted to be Rs. 436.22 lakhs during the years 1971-72. In terms of finance the corporation has during the last 8 years, ending with 1969-70 constructed water supply projects costing Rs. 840 lakhs.

In Rural Areas

There are in all 35,851 villages in the State. About 69 per cent of the total population of 503.35 lakhs (as per 1971 census) in the State, 346.32 lakhs are in rural area. Out of these, 5233 villages have been classified as 'difficult' and susceptible to cholera and they thus require provision of piped water supply schemes. The cost of providing an elementary and essential 5233 villages was then estimated at Rs, 80.65 need like potable drinking water to these crores approximately. It will, however, go up considerably by the time the service is provided due to increase in population and cost of materials etc.

At the end of the Third Five Year Plan, 149 villages were provided with piped water supply facility. By the end of March 1971, piped water supply facility has been provided for 351 villages covering a population of 4.44 lakhs, in the State sector.

During 1971-72, 338 water supply schemes covering 1306 villages and estimated to cost Rs. 2787 lakhs are in progress and 340 schemes for 966 villages are under preparation, in the State sector.

Five Year Plan

As in the Urban Sector, the State