Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 16 (IANS) Water woes continued to haunt the national capital as supply of water to Delhi’s various treatment plants from neighbouring Haryana remained cut, a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) official said Saturday adding that the situation may worsen further as production at water treatment plants has come down sharply.

“Most areas in the city, particularly west, north and south Delhi will continue to face acute water crisis, as Haryana curtails water supply resulting in less production of water. We are trying to augment water tankers,” a senior DJB, pleading anonymity told IANS.

The capital has an average potable water demand of around 1,100 million gallons a day (MGD). But DJB supplies only around 835 MGD. Now, the demand-supply gap has further widened as the production of water at the Wazirabad treatment plant has gone down by 30 MGD while the Haiderpur plant produced 15 MGD less water.

Around 40 lakh people in various areas of the city are facing severe shortage of drinking water due to cuts in supply of water by Haryana, a Delhi government statement said.

“For the past two weeks, the taps have been running dry. This is the situation every summer. No precautionary measure is taken by the authorities. Most of the residents in south Delhi colonies such as Greater Kailash, Panchsheel, Chittaranjan Park, Kalkaji, Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Lajpat Nagar and Sunlight Colony are paying about Rs.1,400 for a thousand litres of water,” Vinod Sharma, a resident of Chittranjan Park in south Delhi said.

“The DJB has some 1,000 tankers and we are trying our best to handle the rising demand. We have requested people to complain so that we can take action. We are constantly in touch with our Haryana counterparts,” the DJB official said.

According to the DJB, the water level at the Wazirabad pond continues to remain below average, affecting the production at both Wazirabad and Chandrawal Water Treatment Plants by 40 MGD, while Haiderpur plant produced 15 MGD water less.

“Delhi always has internal mismanagement with regard to water and blames Haryana for not supplying water, which is wrong. The capital should understand that Haryana is a distressed state and is not able to meet its own requirements,” a senior officer of the Haryana Public Works Department (PWD) told IANS.

Expressing concern over Haryana not heeding to Delhi’s request, the Chief Minister’s office said the Delhi government would take up the issue “at all levels” as Delhi is not just a city but the national capital.