The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has planned to set up water purifier ATMs for slum dwellers that would sell water for 30 paise a litre.
The BMC cites demand and supply situation to justify its move to charge slum dwellers for their drinking water. It claims that water supplied by the Public Health Department (PHD) is not very safe to drink in many areas of the city. Besides, the water gets even more polluted during the summer. In the absence of access to any proper alternative, slum dwellers are forced to drink the polluted tap water.
The BMC sees the solution to these issues in its ATM machines that would sell water purified through the reverse osmosis (RO) method.
If the BMC’s complaints regarding the quality of water supply by the PHD are true, they of course raise serious concerns and point a finger towards gross inefficiency as the PHD spends crores for setting up and maintaining water purifier plants and associated manpower and other requirements.
The larger question, however, is the BMC scheme that plans to spend Rs 4.5 crore of public money in the first phase to set up 20 such ATMs in various slums. The overall project cost will obviously shoot up by the time all the works are completed.
While the BMC plans to charge the consumers for the water and points out that it would be able at some point to recover some of the project cost, the affordability of and need for such a project are in question.
last year, the BDA spent a whopping Rs 12 crore to set up 24 projects that would supply drinking water to various slums round the clock. It has a long-term plan to set up 218 such projects across the city.
Speaking on the issue, a senior PHD official pointed it out to be a move by the BMC to pocket some money.
“If the BMC really wants to set up water ATMs, let it do so near the bus-stand or railway station. Hundreds of passengers would benefit from this. People would like to buy pure water even at Rs 1 than the proposed 30 paise in those places since the bottled alternative would cost them Rs 20. Why spend crores in slumsIJ There shouldn’t be schemes to loot public money in the name of supplying them RO water,” said the official on condition of anonymity.