New Delhi, June 29 (IANS) Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Monday asked the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to penalise people found wasting water in the capital and appealed to the residents to use scarce resource judiciously.
“There is a shortage of water but not that much as is being shown by the media. We have asked DJB to immediately repair running taps and penalise people found wasting water,” Dikshit told reporters here.

Dikshit, who is also the DJB chairperson, Monday interacted with legislators in a meeting at Delhi Assembly here as city has been reeling under acute water shortage coupled with rising mercury. The meeting was also attended by senior DJB officials.

Dikshit exhorted people to make judicious use of water. “Taps have been found running round the clock where the connections are unmetered. The DJB is contemplating action against such connections,” according to an official statement.

The chief minister stressed upon the need of rationalisation of distribution system and deployment of tankers in those areas which remain uncovered by the DJB water supply.

“The DJB was also directed to take immediate action in complaints related to contamination of water - mixing of water and sewer lines,” the statement said.

Dikshit further asked the DJB to make available a list of all executive engineers with their addresses and mobile numbers to the legislators to enable them to interact on daily basis to ensure proper redressal of water related grievances.

Issues related to leakage, running taps, uneven distribution of water, lack of power supply for running water pumps, commissioning of Bawana water treatment plant, availability of tankers, wastage of drinking water, use of drinking water by polluting industries, contamination and insufficient drinking water supply in villages and unauthorized colonies were raised by the legislators in the meeting.

Responding to the issues, Dikshit admitted that the people have been facing some problems due to prolonged heat wave and delay in arrival of monsoon and the situation may improve in the coming days with arrival of monsoon.

Delhi’s estimated 14.8 million people require 3,973 million litres per day (MLD) based on the 275 litre per capita per day norm of the DJB. Around 80 percent of Delhi’s water is from surface water sources and around 11 from underground aquifers.

According to a Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) report, while the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) purportedly supplies 3,336.9 million litres per day (MLD) - which is far lower than the demand - the actual amount reaching the end user is just 1,768.56 MLD.

The rest is lost in transmission and distribution.