Rajasthan
As Summer Sets In, Phed Officials Worried Over Illegal Booster Pumps | Jaipur News
Jaipur: With the advent of summer, officials of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) are worried over the rampant use of booster pump in colonies, houses and residential complexes across the state.
Officials said it is perennial problem as a huge section of residents of the state install these booster pumps illegally to draw more water from the pipelines installed by the PHED.
“If a resident installs a booster pump and draws more water out of the main pipeline it affects the water flow and reduces the pressure. Such a practice has immediate effect on the next building. It has been observed that to avoid this problem even the other houses start installing booster pumps,” a senior field engineer of PHED told TOI.
With the advent of summer, when the demand for water in households is at its peak, residents generally deploy this strategy which has an immense impact on the water supply network of the entire state.
“This practice is illegal. Although field engineers are entitled to carry out inspections at all the households and act against the errant residents, a section of engineers simply turn a blind eye towards this problem. However, this time we are quite strict,” said a senior PHED official.
Recently, during a review meeting PHED additional chief secretary Subodh Agarwal instructed the engineers to remove illegal booster pumps from residences. He directed them to also remove illegal connections.
In this financial year PHED field engineers had seized 709 booster pumps and had removed 14,252 illegal water connections. However, there has been zero progress in removal of booster pumps from districts of Hanumangarh, Dhaulpur, Karauli, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Banswara.
Field engineers, however, claimed that despite their best efforts they are not able to solve this issue owing to several reasons. Most of these residents try to dodge the field engineers when they are on inspection. The engineers have to switch ploys to recover the booster pumps and it often becomes difficult for them as they have to cater to a huge area, especially in rural ones.
“The main problem is that these residents are close to public representatives and government officials. If we try to seize these pumps, they put pressure,” another field engineer disclosed.
Officials said it is perennial problem as a huge section of residents of the state install these booster pumps illegally to draw more water from the pipelines installed by the PHED.
“If a resident installs a booster pump and draws more water out of the main pipeline it affects the water flow and reduces the pressure. Such a practice has immediate effect on the next building. It has been observed that to avoid this problem even the other houses start installing booster pumps,” a senior field engineer of PHED told TOI.
With the advent of summer, when the demand for water in households is at its peak, residents generally deploy this strategy which has an immense impact on the water supply network of the entire state.
“This practice is illegal. Although field engineers are entitled to carry out inspections at all the households and act against the errant residents, a section of engineers simply turn a blind eye towards this problem. However, this time we are quite strict,” said a senior PHED official.
Recently, during a review meeting PHED additional chief secretary Subodh Agarwal instructed the engineers to remove illegal booster pumps from residences. He directed them to also remove illegal connections.
In this financial year PHED field engineers had seized 709 booster pumps and had removed 14,252 illegal water connections. However, there has been zero progress in removal of booster pumps from districts of Hanumangarh, Dhaulpur, Karauli, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Banswara.
Field engineers, however, claimed that despite their best efforts they are not able to solve this issue owing to several reasons. Most of these residents try to dodge the field engineers when they are on inspection. The engineers have to switch ploys to recover the booster pumps and it often becomes difficult for them as they have to cater to a huge area, especially in rural ones.
“The main problem is that these residents are close to public representatives and government officials. If we try to seize these pumps, they put pressure,” another field engineer disclosed.
