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When taps ran dry in city

Last Updated 06 March 2016, 02:37 IST

On the morning of February 21, many Delhiites faced a cut in their water supply and some did not get any water at all. Many thought of it as a regular cut but as the day progressed it dawned on them that they would not be getting the supply for some days. 

This was thanks to the Jat protesters in Haryana demanding reservations in jobs. They had shut down Munak canal, which brings Delhi’s share of Yamuna water, damaged pumping equipment and vandalised control buttons a day before. What followed was an unprecedented water crisis in the national capital, where seven of the nine water treatment plants were forced to close down. 

As Delhi lost two-thirds of its water supply, the city government ordered schools to remain shut and appealed to the people to start saving water. 

The extent of the Munak canal damage is such that water supply has not been normalised since then. Even though most of the city is getting water, there are still some parts like Dwarka, Matiala, Janakpuri, and pockets of the walled city, which are reeling under the crisis and even now relying on tankers from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). 

A crisis in a neighbouring state exposed Delhi’s vulnerability to water shortage.

The 102-km Munak canal was built to save 80 million gallons per day of water that was lost in the existing channel due to seepage and increase the net supply of water. Both Delhi and Haryana were expected to gain from the saved water. 

The DJB distributes around 900 million gallons per day (MGD) of water in Delhi, out of which 543 MGD (almost 60 per cent) comes from Haryana through Yamuna and 240 MGD from Uttar Pradesh through Upper Ganga Canal. 

The capital’s only own sources of water are underground reserves, ranney wells, and recycled water, which provide 120 MGD – not enough to cater to the huge population. 

During the emergency situation, only 360 MGD was available (240 MGD from UP and 120 MGD from city own resources) and this was being distributed across Delhi.  As many as 767 tankers were pressed into service.

Old problemThough the magnitude of the present crisis was something the capital has not seen before, Delhi’s water shortage due to dependency on other states is not something new. Even in the past, Delhi has been engaged in claims and counterclaims with neighbouring states over its share of water.

In February last year, Haryana government had issued a statement that its farmers could not be expected to suffer due to water shortage and other states should also contribute to Delhi’s raw water requirement. It had also filed an affidavit in a court saying that it cannot ramp up water supply through the canal, after which the Delhi government had accused it of shifting its stand every now and then over water supply through Munak canal. 

Even Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had last year acknowledged that the city needs to be self-reliant when it comes to water. 

“As population increases, there will be a huge burden on Delhi to provide water to more citizens with the same input. Since Delhi has no water of its own and has little cooperation from states like Haryana, we have to ensure that we are self-reliant,” he had said in September. 

According to Delhi’s Water Minister and DJB chairman Kapil Mishra, Delhi is not dependent on Haryana but on the river Yamuna, and there can be no replacement for the river. 

“Getting water from Yamuna is our right and no one is doing us a favour,” he says. 

Experts agree with Mishra that Yamuna is the primary source of water but also believe that the capital’s water woes are as much due to the mismanagement of its own resources and lack of efforts by successive governments to reduce its dependency on other states. 

“We have said many times that water should directly come from the river and not diverted through a parallel canal managed by Haryana to reach Delhi,” says activist and Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan convener Manoj Misra. 

“It is stupid to let the same water that the river was naturally carrying to be diverted into a canal (Munak) to reach the same destination (Delhi) at the mercy of another state. Till it comes from the canal, there will be blackmailing by Haryana government or supply will be affected by these incidents (agitation),” he says. 

However, minister Kapil Mishra contests this understanding and says that getting water directly from river is the main reason why ammonia levels rise in the water, making it unfit for distribution. 

“Water from the river is heavily polluted with industry effluents from Panipat and Sonepat ,” he says. 

But according to activist Manoj Misra, this is because Delhi lets the upstream state get away with the “murder of the river”. 

“It is against the Water Act to put any pollutants in a stream. Delhi must invoke CPCB to ensure that Haryana/Uttar Pradesh do not put any of their polluting drains into the river, as should Delhi once the river enters its territory. But to say that canal water is preferred against river water is a lame excuse as event the canal water is not all that unpolluted as all the pollutants from the city and industries of Yamunanagar in Haryana are entering the Western Yamuna Canal,” he says. 

Various government policies have in the past talked about how Delhi needs a mechanism to deal with situations like the Jat agitation but only little has moved on ground. Experts feel that water conservation steps have failed to take off as there is no “societal or political will for them”. 

A case in point is boosting rainwater harvesting in the city. Despite an existing regulation which makes it mandatory for buildings above 500 square metres to have rainwater harvesting structures, only few have done it. Notices are sent and sometimes penalties levied, but nothing after that. Even government properties, which should show the way for rainwater harvesting, which is said to be one of the cheapest and easiest ways of boosting water, have not installed provisions for it. 

Acknowledging the need for rainwater harvesting in the wake of the crisis, the government on Tuesday decided to extend the deadline for installing structures till June 30. It was also decided not to issue fines to building owners till then. 

Similarly, the capital has not been able to maintain its lakes, stepwells (baolis) or other water bodies meant for storing water. Delhi’s water bodies are dirty, full of algae and near dead. Had they been maintained properly, the water from these could be used in a crisis. 

“There is still some space in north and west Delhi and the government should build at least 10 reservoirs rather than allow the DDA (Delhi Development Authority) to urbanise that space,” Manoj Misra says. 

Various plans have been made by experts, but in vain. For example, a plan to revive Naini Lake in north Delhi was prepared last year. Delhi Tourism has agreed to take up restoration of the lake and a plan for that was submitted last July to the department Prof C R Babu, ecologist and professor-emeritus at Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems. However, it was put on the backburner as the memorandum of understanding between the government and the North Corporation, which is the land-owning agency, is yet to be renewed after it got expired two years back. 

Kapil Mishra says that this plan was prepared with a perspective to revive tourism but the recent water crisis has given them an opportunity to revive water bodies, which can be used to draw water in emergency situations. 

The minister has asked the DJB to identify such water bodies for revival. The government will also be taking over 100 water bodies from the Revenue department for this purpose. 

Further, in order to plug leakages and see water does not go waste, the DJB will increase its leakage detection units from one to eight. 

“We are also purchasing quality mobile vans for this purpose. These vans will have small labs inside which will detect leakages. We are also talking to RWAs to monitor this. So, all these things will add up and things will change,” he says. 


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(Published 06 March 2016, 02:37 IST)

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