Shimla facing water shortage, tourist influx adds to troubles

SHIMLA: This summer there has been no escape from horrendous heat waves and to make matters worse, neighbouring Himachal Pradesh is staring at an acute water crisis in absence of rainfall and hot weather conditions drying up water sources.
The capital city of Shimla is getting water supply every 3-4 days due to less availability of water and municipal authorities are struggling to restore daily supply.Shimla requires 43 MLD (million litres per day) of water daily but is getting only around 30 MLD.
An increase in influx of tourists in Shimla has also led to an increase in water consumption. Shimla has a total of 276 registered hotels and there is no record of unregistered ones. Apart from these, the Himachal capital has an estimated 963 Airbnbs and homestays.
To meet the requirement of tourists, hotels buy water from private tankers and pay between Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000 per tanker, depending on the location of the hotel. There is no record of how homestays and residences hosting guests in Airbnbs are managing water for their guests.
Shimla city gets water supply from six different water projects Gumma, Giri, Churat, Chad, Seog and KotiBrandi. On Monday, the city received 20.49 MLD water from Gumma, 8.43 MLD from Giri, 1.22 MLD from Churat, no water from Seog, 0.45 MLD from Chairh and 0.95 MLD from Koti Brandi, a total of 31.54 MLD.
Shimla Hotels and Tourism Stakeholders Association president M K Seth said unprecedented hot weather conditions coupled with a prolonged dry spell with no rainfall has aggravated the is sue. “Otherwise in the last couple of years, the supply used to remain normal and only a few tankers had to be purchased during the peak season,” he said and added that amid missing rainfall, the water sources have dried up so the authorities too cannot be blamed for the water shortage.
Shimla had faced its worst-ever water crisis in the summer of 2018 as people struggled for water for several weeks, leading to widespread agitation and protests against the BJP government headed by then chief minister Jai Ram Thakur. To meet the demand for drinking water, the state government had supplied water in tankers but such arrangements proved inadequate.
On April 16, 2019, the cabinet approved the formation of Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited (SJPNL) for the water supply and wastewater management in Greater Shimla Planning Area. SJPNL initiated an ambitious project to draw 67 million litres per day (MLD) of water from the Satluj river.
Under the project, water would be lifted from the Satluj near Shakrodi village to augment 67 MLD water at Sanjauli. However, the project , which involves lifting of water to a height of 1.6 km and laying pipes for 22 km, will take acouple of years to complete. The Shimla municipal corporation aims to replace the water distribution pipe network as part of this project and to upgrade it to a 24x7 water supply system.