When it comes to wasting treated water, the country’s mega cities are the biggest culprits. This, when about 68 per cent of the population has access to piped water supply.

Treated water, or non-revenue water, is water that is fed into the system but does not reach a consumer — either due to pilferage or because of leakage in pipes.

Saugata Roy, Minister of State for Urban Develop-ment told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that seven mega cities in the country waste between 13 and 53 per cent of treated water.

Delhi tops the list, wasting 52.4 per cent of treated water, followed by Banga-lore (50.9 per cent) and Hyderabad (37.5 per cent).

Mumbai is one of the better performers, where wastage of treated water is 13 per cent, followed by Chennai with 17 per cent.

“The states’ water boards/corporations do not have the capacity or the expertise to identify or plug the leakages. Unless leakages are fixed, wastage will continue,” said V. Srinivas Chary, director, Centre for Energy, Environment, Urban Governance and Infrastructure Development at Hyderabad’s Administrative Staff College of India.