Jamia relies on water tankers, pays the price

You will hardly find anyone here with healthy and shiny hair. Most of us start losing it even before we turn 30,” claims Gohar Asif, a resident of Jamia’s Joga Bai Extension who works with Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

“The issue here is not just about the supply of water but also of its quality,” he adds.

Nestled between the Yamuna on the one side and Jamia Millia Islamia University on the other, the area loosely referred to as Jamia is home to more than 5 lakh people.

Walking in its narrow lanes teeming with people, one can’t miss the sight of rickshaw pullers delivering cans filled with water door to door. Shemin Ahmed runs a parlour in the ground floor of his flat in Jamia’s Batla House and lives with his family in the first.

Complaining about the state of water in the area, Ahmed says that only 30 per cent of the area gets the water supply from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). So almost every home in Jamia has a submersible water pump which pulls the underground water out and an RO system which makes it fit for use.

“We only bathe with groundwater but purchase water to wash our head and for brushing teeth. We are buying 20-litre cans of water for Rs 20 every day, and a family ends up spending Rs 1,200-2,000 per month on water,” says Shemin Ahmed.

Ahmed’s 10-year-old younger daughter is afflicted with a “unique” disease since she was very little.

“One day she accidentally swallowed some water with which she was bathing,” Ahmed says. She apparently got a kidney infection, her condition now is diagnosed as Hypoalbuminemia. She loses and gains weight in an uncontrolled manner.

“Now she is thin. Her weight is around 20 kg. But a week from now she will gain 10-12 kg without any apparent reason. Her body swells and her veins start to pop out when she suddenly gains weight,” Ahmed says.

Difficulty in breathing

“I feel pain in my abdomen and difficulty in breathing. My knees also pain,” says his daughter Nabeela Ahmed. Frequent visits to doctors haven’t brought about any permanent cure. Doctors say she might get better as she grows older.

Despite being a big area with a population in lakhs, the supply of piped water is restricted only to a few pockets of the old part of the locality. “Less than 40 per cent of Jamia gets Delhi Jal Board-supplied water,” says Nadeem Akhtar, general secretary of the NGO Shikhar.

“Most of the areas which get tap water are those which settled earliest, like Noor Nagar, Zakir Nagar, Gaffar Manjil, Batla House and Jogabai Extension,” The DJP had then laid the pipelines.

Since 2000, Jamia has witnessed a spurt in population. “In the newly developed areas, water hasn’t reached yet. People over there are totally dependent on bottled water or those who can afford it get the underground water by putting submersible pumps,” Akhtar says.

Fear of water

According to him, even the areas where people get tap water hesitate to use it for drinking or cooking.

The DJB pipes which supply water in Jamia are very old, and in the absence of repair work, reports of sewage mixing with drinking water scare the people.

“The lines are very old and crisscross with sewer lines at several places. We find the water that we get through tap smelly with a darkish hue. Itching, skin problem and hair fall are common problems here,” says Akhtar.

Hinting at a thriving business of illegal water-bottling plants in the area, Fayzaan, another resident, says the scarcity of water could also be deliberate.

“So many illegal bottled-water plants are running in the area, providing water cans to the water-deprived population of Jamia. Why would they want their business to shut by letting the government-supplied safe, drinking water reach here?” he says.

Due to the initiative of local MLA Amanatullah Khan, DJB pipelines are being laid in some parts of Jamia, but Akhtar feels that until the proposed “Ganga water” from Sonia Vihar treatment plant comes to the area, situation will not improve drastically.