LUCKNOW: Jal Sansthan 's water-supply to large portions of trans-Gomti area is likely to become short for over a month with the Sharda Sahayak Feeder Canal feeding to the Kathauta Jheel waterworks (reservoir) which supplies water to these colonies being closed for annual cleaning purpose Monday onwards.

The reservoir has a capacity of 1,000 million litres. Normally, it supplies 60 million litres water per day to residents of Indiranagar and Gomtinagar. Jal Sansthan officials claimed once the supply stopped, the daily supply would reduce to only 35 MLD.

Though Jal Sansthan claims the reservoir has enough stored water to sustain needs of residents for 22 days, Irrigation department which is responsible for cleaning the canal has admitted taking more than a month's time to complete the cleaning process. The supply would remain closed from April 14 to May 15.

This could pose threat of a major water-crisis for residents of Indiranagar and Gomtinagar areas as Kathauta Jheel reservoir alone caters to almost 80% water needs of people living in these areas. The shortfall is met by underground tube wells. There are around 52 tube wells in Indiranagar and 42 in Gomtinagar, but even these put together are not sufficient to supply water in absence of supply from the reservoir.

Jal Sansthan said past experiences show the irrigation department have not yielded timely results, hence, they are not too sure if the delay was avoidable this time. Normally, irrigation department closes the canal twice a year for about three weeks every time to clean up silt deposit and annual maintenance of the canal. But as a tradition, the department has always failed to meet the deadline making it difficult for Jal Sansthan to ensure uninterrupted water supply to people.

Incidentally, Gomti Nagar Jan Kalyan Samiti (comprising members from RWAs of Gomtinagar) met the mayor on Sunday to apprise him of the expected water-crisis likely to hit their colonies in absence of water supply from the canal. Mayor Dinesh Sharma said, "Time and again, irrigation department stops the canal supply for annual clean-up process, hence obstructing water-supply to trans-Gomti residents. This is a serious problem as residents always complain about it. We have been urging the irrigation department to ensure that this time cleaning is completed within 22 days so that people do not face water crisis ."

Irrigation department, on the other hand, said they were bound to take more than a month's time as they need to clean even the numerous distributaries emerging from this 258 km long canal. A senior irrigation official said, "Jal Nigam has not paid us any royalty till date, nor has it signed any MOU with us in spite of our repeated reminders. The canal is meant only for irrigation purpose, yet we have been supplying water to the reservoir just to help the public." The canal discharges around 23,000 cusec water for irrigation purpose only. For Kathauta Jheel, 100 cusec of water is discharged from this canal.

Popularly called 'Third' waterworks, Kathauta Lake waterworks is located in the vicinity of Deva Road on the border of Lucknow and Barabanki. This waterworks was constructed last year by UP Jal Nigam to minimise dependence on tube-wells which was posing danger to the underground water level. Jal Nigam has been trying to discourage usage of tube-wells in past as it is considered to exploit groundwater.

A senior Jal Sansthan official said, "Our waterworks is designed such that if the canal supply is stopped for some reason, it can sustain people's need for only three weeks. This poses a difficult situation for us as the reservoir gets emptied increasing dependence on tube-wells." He added that if the reservoir gets emptied, the total supply would dip by almost 60-70% in these trans-Gomti areas.

There are two other waterworks in Lucknow too, the biggest being in Aishbagh area supplying to Hazratganj, Chowk, etc and the other in Balaganj catering to other Old Lucknow areas.

