Nagpur Water 95.5% Pure, claims OCW

Don’t reach for that bottled water if you are in Nagpur; Thanks to OCW, city water is 95.5% pure

Nagpur News: “Water is nectar. And Nagpur water is naturally sweet and very potable – we ensure it is the purest available in the country too” said Mr. Sanjay Roy, CEO of Orange city Water Pvt. Ltd, while speaking to Nagpur Today in an exclusive chat.
Nagpur was the first city selected by Govt. of India under the aegis of JNNRU as a model for supply of clean, uninterrupted water supply project that was to be replicated all over the country in time. The project would be financed 50% by the Central Government, 20% by the State Government and 30% contribution would have to come from the local body – in this case the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. NMC, due to paucity of funds and also for the sake of better management decided to outsource the work under a public private partnership –PPP. Orange City

Before 48-hour shut down

Horizontal Drilling by OCW

Water was the private party selected after scrutiny and then OCW invested on behalf of NMC in this yeoman project.
The ‘uninterrupted water supply’ project – called 24 * 7 water also – consists of three parts:
1. Operations and maintenance of present system (of pipelines and water supply)

2. Actual rehabilitation of old and damaged pipelines as also laying of new ones.

3. Achieving 100% meterization of all customers. ( Which means ensuring every customer is paying the water charges as levied).

A word on water tariffs here –A lot of allegations have been made that the coming of OCW is going to make water very expensive and unaffordable to common people. As Mr. Sachin Dravekar, Head of Corporate Communications of OCW clarified, OCW is just the service provider. Deciding on water rates is the responsibility of the NMC and is a prerogative of the House.
On 1st March 2012, OCW began the work of operations and maintenance of existing pipelines. Among the 2,100 km pipeline, 600 Kms was found to be in an extremely bad shape.
After the survey was completed, the actual repairs and in many cases, rehabilitation (replacement) work was begun on 17th July 2012. The first area identified for this work was Nandanvan, ESR command area. ESR stands for ‘elevated water reservoir’, in short the overhead water tanks we see in every locality.
From then till date, work has begun in 52 ESR areas. 2017, is the target for completion of this Rehabilitation work. Already work on 440 Kms has been completed.
Simultaneously, the service meter in each and every household is being replaced. As are damaged pipelines even within the house. ‘Singapore model’ is being used for the pipelines, whereby HDPE – High Density Polyethylene – is being used for general pipelines and MDP – medium Density Polyethylene is used within houses.
End users are divided in two categories – Registered and unregistered. In other words, legal and illegal but as Mr. Dravekar says “ we don’t want to use this nomenclature because ‘illegal’ has bad connotation. Ultimately, every Nagpurian is our customer and we have the mandate to provide water to every household – and ensure also that it is paid for!”
75,000 households have been covered under this drive already.