Noida: Noida Federation of Apartment Owners Association (NOFAA) for high rises on Friday wrote to Ritu Maheshwari, Chief Executive Officer of Noida Industrial Development Authority, demanding a slew of measures to improve supply of water at the societies.
In the mail, the NOFAA said that the Ganga water supply in several high rises has not been consistent. The supply comes twice a day and that too for a very short duration. Quite often that too gets restricted, leaving residents with insufficient water supply. Example are several societies in Sector 50 and Sector 7X and also other societies.
Further, it says that the TDS levels (as per prescribed standards) have been high, forcing residents to use filtering/water treatment plants. This results in an extra financial burden for the residents. There have been instances when the levels have gone beyond 2,000, where even the filters fail to do the corrections.
Also those who can not afford such systems, are left with no choice but to get exposed to health risks.
Rajiva Singh, president of NOFAA said that each resident (each family in an apartment) pay almost Rs 5,000 (approximately) as annual charges for water, to the administration, irrespective of their consumption patterns. The least what the Noida dwellers would expect is a clean and safe drinking water in the tap.
He said that it is important that water meters should be installed on the main water lines of societies as well as for individual apartments so that societies and residents can be charged as per their water consumption patterns rather than based only on the infrastructure provided.
He said, “Behavioral changes will help in saving water. Currently, the bills are raised on the basis of capacity of main supply line to a society, in which, all are charged equally. But many residents do not care how much they should use. It does not matter for them, whether the family is big or small. Many small families might be using more than big families. Considering this, each household should have meter to keep track of the consumption.”
He said that there should be a separate water billing/charges for commercial users which are part of many societies such as shops, salons, restaurants etc. The above billing system (apartment based) will also make people accountable on the water usage and also help to conserve water.
NOFAA has been actively participating in awareness programs on rain water harvesting. Societies, working on RWH infrastructure, should also be given benefits in terms of subsidies to encourage the residents to participate in improving the water table of the region.
Singh said that they have requested the authority to look into the matter and take necessary steps for solving the long pending issue, so that the water supply and quality of water can be improved for the region.
