187-Drinking Water in Guwahati City - A Plan for Sustainable Management.

Abstract

The Guwahati Metropolitan area covering an area of 216.97 sq. km. has a population of 8,09,895 according to the 2001 census. However, in reality the present population may be above 14 lakhs. The main source of drinking water for the inhabitants of the city is ground water obtained from hand tubewell, deep tubewell and ringwell set up on their own for drinking and other domestic requirements. Although the Brahmaputra river flows along the northern boundary of the city, still the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), other statutory bodies and various governmental departments fail to provide piped water to a large section of the city dwellers due to non existence of necessary infrastructure. Moreover the results reveal that the concentrations of iron and fluoride are found to be above the permissible level in more than 70 and 20% water samples respectively. Again the study made it clear that drinking water supply is grossly inadequate and irregular in a large number of municipal wards of Guwahati city. The existing water supply facility neither covers the entire city nor fulfills the standard of per capita demand. A long-term sustainable drinking water management strategy for Guwahati can be conceived centering around multiple, large-scale, centralized, modern technology based water supply schemes based on the perennial source of the mighty river Brahmaputra.