The lack of water supply in some areas of Pinar del Río reaches delirium. Up to 30 days, 3,000 people in several municipalities in the province’s capital are without water supply, according to Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH) who visited the area on Tuesday.
The official went to Pinar del Río to announce that the arrival of nine pumping teams, of the 51 that the country has, is expected to improve the situation of the territory, which is today the most damaged on the island, although Villa Clara did not lags behind
Three of these teams will go to the main pipes, one to the community of Briones Montoto, another to Los Palacios and four for the re-pumping in the city of Pinar del Río, although he did not give a date that allows families to hope for improvement. affected by this situation.
Three of these teams will go to the main pipes, one to the community of Briones Montoto, another to Los Palacios and four for pumping in the city of Pinar del Río.
The culprits are fundamentally two, the US “blockade” and the “disorderly growth” of the population. “If it were ordered, it would have its infrastructure and we would not have that problem. The analyzes point to around 26 settlements that have grown and that today do not receive the service,” said Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman.
To alleviate the problem, a comprehensive intervention is necessary that includes the conductor, the distribution network, the storage network and the interior networks that supply the homes.
According to Rodríguez Rodríguez, the Council of Ministers approved giving priority to Pinar del Río and Villa Clara in a loan granted by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment. “This will be a financing that will allow not only to carry out the investment works, but also to sustain them and guarantee the preparation of the personnel.”
This last issue seems to be of vital importance since the official explained that the pumping equipment that will arrive soon will be assembled and checked by the Water and Sanitation company to ensure its proper functioning since “not a few of those previously assigned have burned “, says the provincial newspaper Guerrillawithout adding who was responsible for these events.
A contract with the University of Pinar del Río will allow, according to the authorities, to guarantee the improvement of the management processes of the Aqueduct Company and its municipal division.
Serious supply problems force more than 4,000 people to be supplied with tanker trucks, known as pipes, of which more than 3,000 have “cycles of more than one month,” as the Cuban bureaucracy calls the frequency with which it is delivered. in this precarious way a service as basic as water.
Less serious, by comparison, seems to be the situation in Mantua, where it is planned to make a driver and who receives water in tanker trucks in terms of more than seven days. The same periods of drought live in Herradura and Entronque de Herradura, where interventions are also planned.
Guerrilla remember that the province made a 30-inch conductor last year, one section of the other was replaced to eliminate deliveries en route and the worst sections of the 36-inch conductor were eliminated to be able to carry the water to the city. The plan doesn’t seem to be going very well judging by the results.
In 2021, works of more than 4.5 kilometers were carried out on the main conductor, in addition to 20 kilometers of networks and pipes that have improved, according to the official press, supply, “although difficulties still prevail,” they admit. For this year, 418 interventions are planned, of which 148 will be in the provincial capital “as soon as possible.”
On the Island there are problems in more than 240 pumping equipment, as evidenced by the usual lack of supply in towns ranging from the capital to small rural towns where water is conspicuous by its absence.
But nevertheless, Cuba has been exporting engineers to South Africa for almost 10 years to help the Department of Water and Sanitation fight against the country’s infrastructure problems and share their knowledge.
In turn, the Cuban state company for maintenance and repair of hydraulic works and the Spanish electrical supply company ERKA joined forces recently in order to offer “comprehensive services to water and sanitation systems in Cuba”. The agreement also provides for diagnosis, construction, repair, rehabilitation, assembly, start-up and after-sales services, as well as the guarantee on networks and facilities on the Island.
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