Daily Shortfall 24% In Delhi, 17% In Mumbai Water scarcity is fast becoming urban India’s number one woe, with the government’s own data revealing that residents in 22 out of 32 major cities have to deal with daily shortages. The worst-hit city is Jamshedpur, where the gap between demand and supply is a yawning 70%. The crisis is acute in Kanpur, Asansol, Dhanbad, Meerut, Faridabad, Visakhapatnam, Madurai and Hyderabad — where supply fails to meet almost 30% of the demand — according to data provided by states which was placed in the Lok Sabha during the recently-concluded Parliament session by the urban development ministry. The figures reveal that in Greater Mumbai and Delhi — which have the highest water demand among all cities — the gap between demand and supply is comparatively less. The shortfall is 24% for Delhi and 17% for Mumbai. However, the situation is worse than that. For example, in Delhi, 3,156 million litres of water per day (MLD) is supplied against the requirement of 4,158. But around 40% of the supply is lost in distribution resulting in a much wider gap between demand and supply than what’s recorded. “In official records, many cities might be getting adequate water. But because of faulty engineering and poor maintenance, the actual availability is much less,” said Dilip Fouzdar, a water resource management professional. He added that though Mumbai gets good rains in comparison to many other big cities, very little of this is actually harvested. “A robust system to recharge groundwater can make the city avoid any water shortage,” Fouzdar said. Experts say that population of cities such as Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and Kanpur have increased manifold, resulting in increased demand for water. But the deeper problem is one of shortsightedness, they said — governments wake up to water demand in a city after the situation has become acute. One such example is Gurgaon, where a major water channel was built almost 15-20 years after large-scale development happened. Government records show 10 major cities either meet daily water requirements or have surplus supply. Nagpur tops this list, reporting 52% extra supply while Punjab’s industrial city, Ludhiana, has 26% surplus supply. Other cities managing to meet their water demand include Vadodara, Rajkot, Kolkata, Allahabad and Nashik. What’s also cause for concern is that a majority of the cities are depending on water sources from outside.