NEW DELHI: Even though the summer heat is yet to hit the peak, the residents of Delhi are looking at the prospects of water shortage thanks to reduced supply and high pollution of Yamuna water. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Vice-Chairman Raghav Chadha on Tuesday said water supply will be affected in large parts of the national capital as the Haryana government is not supplying enough clean water to the city.
On Tuesday itself, the incoming supply of clean water from Haryana to three major water treatment plants in Delhi Wazirabad, Chandrayal, and Okhla reduced by 85 mgd (million gallons daily), he said.
“Water supply in large part of Delhi will be affected because the Haryana government has chosen to remain oblivious to the water needs of Delhiites. It is not honoring the legal commitments to supply water to Delhi. This is criminal negligence on part of the Haryana government. It is willfully violating Delhiites’ right to life,” Chadha said.
At Wazirabad, the supply has come down to 82 mgd from 135 mgd, at Chandrawal, it has dipped from 92 mgd to 72 mgd, and at Okhla from 21 mgd to 10 mgd, he added.
“So, in total, 85 MGD of the water supply has been reduced. We have moved the Supreme Court over this. We were trying to make do with the level of pollution by treating water, but now, the limit has been crossed by Haryana,” he stated. Being a landlocked state, Delhi has four major sources of water the Yamuna, Ganga, and the Beasrives and groundwater.
“Forty percent of Delhi’s daily water production comes from Yamuna via Haryana, but currently the water that is coming is high in ammonia content, making it untreatable,” Chadha said. “The Haryana government is deliberately trying to play with the lives of people by supplying pollutant water that is untreatable by world-class treatment plants,” Chadha stated. He explained that Delhi water treatment plants are equipped to treat water that has up to 1 PPM ammonia, after which the water becomes untreatable. Currently, the ammonia contamination levels are at 7.36 PPM, he said.