Govt to harvest floodplain water

Backup plan

There will be a month’s backup of water in the city, which will be used in times of crisis, if the Delhi government’s new plan is to be believed.

The Delhi Jal Board has decided to tap water that seeps into the floodplain between Palla and Wazirabad during monsoon using 105 tubewells and five ranney wells.

Called as the ‘Conserve and Use’ floodplain water harvesting project, an extra 10 million gallons per day (MGD) has already been created under it and in the next six months, 35 MGD will be created in the first phase, reaching a total of 60 MGD by the end of the year, in terms of extra production.

The decision comes in the wake of the water crisis in the national capital in February due to Jat agitation.

“Delhi has been dependent on Haryana and UP for its water and we faced a major crisis when the Munak canal crisis happened. Local river floodplain subterranean sand aquifers had natural storage and are recharged from monsoon rain each year,” said Water Minister and Delhi Jal Board Chairman Kapil Mishra.

“Sandy river aquifers of the Yamuna are 5-20 km wide and can be between 40 and 100 m deep. More than a third of this volume is water. Since most of the southern floodplain is encroached upon, the relatively free northern floodplain from Burari till Palla is being conserved and used for the Yamuna floodplain project,” Mishra added.

The government is already drawing about 25-30 million gallons per day from here through existing tubewells and supplying to various areas nearby. This project will be an extension of the already existing plan.

“The floodplain gets recharged each year during the monsoon at which point about 100 million cubic metre (roughly one month’s supply) is available for extraction. While this cannot be withdrawn in one go, the project will not only increase daily availability of water for Delhi but will also act as an emergency store," said Diwan Singh, a water activist, who assisted Dr Vikram Soni, Professor Emeritus at JNU in drafting the proposal.

On Wednesday, Mishra, along with senior officials and experts visited Palla well fields. The team decided to lay a new pipeline to carry at least 50 MGD and repair the existing one so that till the new pipeline comes, this will deliver at least 28 MGD every day.

A new reservoir will also be created in Palla, which will be monitored by a central control room with automatic monitoring system which will monitor water quality like arsenic, salinity which will shut down tube wells if there is contamination.DH News Service