Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 17 (IANS) The water level at the Wazirabad treatment plant here has risen marginally after a Haryana official visited the unit the day before, the Delhi government said Sunday, signalling some respite from water crunch in the coming days.

The marginal rise in water level at the plant comes after Haryana Principal Secretary Irrigation K.K. Jalan visited the Wazirabad and Haiderpur water treatment plants (WTPs) Saturday.

Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials said that the water level has risen only at Wazirabad unit but this could help some neighbourhoods gets more water.

“The increase is not enough, but it can help some areas that get their supply from Wazirabad WTP. The situation needs to be monitored over the next week,” said an official.

“The Haryana irrigation principal secretary, without informing the DJB, Saturday visited WTPs at Wazirabad and Haiderpur. It is understood that he noticed the pondage level of water at Wazirabad at 672 ft as against the normal level of 674.5 ft,” said a statement issued by the Delhi government.

“After this, the Haryana government has some what taken corrective steps resulting in an improvement in the level at Wazirabad WTP. However, the water in Haiderpur WTP is still short by 15 million gallons per day (MGD),” it said.

“The pondage water level at Wazirabad had remained at 672 ft during the last week, resulting in the drastic curtailment in water supply. Every one foot reduction in the level reduces generation of treated water by 20-30 MGD and also affects the functioning of the WTP and pumping supply,” the statement said.

With the water level at the treatment plants remaining below the normal level during the past one week, the DJB supply has been curtailed in different parts of Delhi.

The supply has been affected in west, central and north Delhi and parts of Delhi cantonment and south Delhi.

According to DJB officials, the crisis was linked to Haryana reducing the release of raw water from Tajewala Barrage in Yamuna Nagar for Delhi.

The DJB supplies water through its network of WTPs, booster pumping stations and around 9,000-km-long of distribution system in the city of over 16 million people.

With DJB’s rotational supply duration dwindling to not more than 30 minutes a day in many neighbourhoods, people are forced to depend on tankers and bottled water.

“One tanker cannot serve an entire colony and to add to it, there is such a long queue of water seekers. Water being pulled up by on-line booster pumps is dirty,” said Manisha Sharma, a resident of Shakti Nagar in north Delhi.

“There is no option but to buy bottled water,” Sharma added.