Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has instructed officials to ensure that all water distribution station tanks in the city are cleaned every six months and that the work is continuously monitored, after a report highlighted major gaps in scheduled maintenance.
The direction was issued during a meeting of the AMC Standing Committee by its chairman, Kamlesh Patel. The issue gained urgency after bones were reportedly found inside a tank at the Asarwa Water Distribution Station, raising questions about the condition and oversight of the city’s water storage infrastructure.
According to Gujarat Samachar Digital, municipal records cited in an earlier report showed that only 95 of 241 water distribution station tanks had been cleaned during the previous six months, despite the stated cleaning requirement. A further 125 tanks had been cleaned between six and 12 months earlier, while 21 tanks had not been cleaned for more than a year. This meant that 146 of the 241 tanks had not undergone cleaning within the prescribed six-month period.
The earlier review also showed uneven performance across Ahmedabad’s administrative zones. None of the 42 tanks in the eastern zone had been cleaned during the previous six months. Forty-one had been cleaned between six and 12 months earlier, while one had gone more than a year without cleaning. In the north-west zone, nine of 36 tanks had been cleaned within six months, while the figure for the west zone was seven of 40.
The south-west zone recorded the highest proportion in the earlier data, with 26 of its 28 tanks cleaned within six months. The 21 tanks that had gone more than a year without cleaning included seven in the north-west zone, six in the west zone, six in the north zone, one in the east zone and one in the south zone.
The Asarwa case brought the maintenance issue into sharper focus. The tank at the Asarwa Water Distribution Station was reported to have last been cleaned in January 2025. The discovery of bones there prompted scrutiny of the wider system for cleaning and monitoring water distribution station tanks across the city.
Speaking at the Standing Committee meeting, Patel said Ahmedabad had 243 water tanks and that all were cleaned twice a year. He said separate cleaning schedules had been fixed for each tank. Patel also stated that 96 tanks had been cleaned under the current schedule and that instructions had been issued again to ensure cleaning twice a year, with continuous monitoring of the work.
The difference between the earlier figure of 241 tanks and the chairman’s current reference to 243 has not been explained in the supplied report. The immediate municipal instruction is to maintain a six-month cleaning cycle for every tank and monitor implementation through the corporation’s administrative system.
