Mrinal Mondal, Member Mayor in Council (MMiC), water, said the civic authorities have taken up projects of around Rs 600 crore, including construction of water treatment plants and several pumping stations.

“We have several projects to solve the water woes in the city. Work is on but since all are big projects, it will take time to be completed,” said Mondal.

According to the MMiC, water, “A meeting was held between the Water Supply Department and the chairpersons of borough 13 and 14 to discuss the water crisis in Behala. We asked them to give us land where we can lay a pipeline for connecting the pumping station in Daspara to the booster pumping station located in Behala, Chowrasta. However, the chairpersons — belonging to the Trinamool Congress — said they will not allow us to lay pipeline on a 100-metre stretch just for the sake of opposing the projects.”

Ratna Sur, chairman of Borough 13, however, said: “In the last four years we have never been called by the MMiC, water. We tried to hold a meeting with him several times so that we can discuss water scarcity and reach a solution, but to no avail.”

Meanwhile, a department official added that the civic body loses 2 million gallon water as they do not have a reservoir to store water which is supplied by the Garden Reach plant in the last hour.

“If there was a political solution and we could use the Daspara pumping station, then we could use the 2 million gallon water that is at present wasted,” added the official.