NEW DELHI: Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena has written to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, flagging the “miserable hygiene and sanitary conditions” at the Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant which supplies drinking water to large parts of the national capital. During a visit to the WTP, he inspected the condition of the treatment plan.
Saxena also spoke about Delhi Jal Board’s “gross inaction” in cleaning and desilting the pond reservoir behind the Wazirabad barrage which supplies water to Wazirabad and Chandrawal Water Treatment Plants.
He also underlined that despite a desilting contract being in place since 2013, no desiltation took place resulting in the depth of the pond reducing from 4.26 metres to a mere 0.42 metres in the last 8 years.
“The pond had the capacity to hold 250 million gallons of water, but now it reduced due to siltation by 93 per cent and can now hold only 16 million gallons,” the letter read.
“A back-of-the-envelope calculation would bring out that during the last 10 years, owing to the siltation of the pond area, Delhi, a territory almost exclusively dependent upon other states for its water needs, let nearly 9,12,500 million gallons of water literally flow down the river,” added L-G in the letter.
He also pointed out that the acute shortage of water in the national capital is due to the mismanagement of the DJB.
Frequent water shortage in the city, including the one before Holi, on account of Wazirabad and Chandrawal water treatment plants not being fully operational, is solely due to this reason and not due to the Haryana, he added.
“It would also be essential that strict action is initiated against officials responsible for this gross dereliction of duty and criminal misconduct,” the letter read. Responding to this, DJB Chairman and Water Minister of Delhi Saurabh Bhardwaj asked the L-G to take cognisance of illegal sand mining in Haryana.