Delhi University students on Monday met Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) CEO requesting completion and implementation of the water extraction project from the Yamuna flood plains, pending since 2009. The students, from the university’s Geology department, had adopted in 2011 a study by WAPCOS as subject of their masters’ thesis. The WAPCOS study was based on a unique ‘Preserve and Use’ scheme to supply water to the city. It established that the Yamuna floodplains can be put to use for functions such as natural water storage and recharge.

WAPCOS based its study on a 2008 report by Central Ground Water Board, which claimed that flood plains can supply as much as 100 million gallons per day (MGD) water. Delhi needs about 1,100 MGD water daily but gets only about 850 MGD.

“However, it’s been almost a year that the project is not been put into the implementation stage,” said Diwan Singh of Natural Heritage First, the group with which the students had tied up for their thesis.The delay in implementing the study has not just delayed the thesis by the students - 10 of whom met the CM and the DJB CEO —Singh claimed, “It is also leading to a loss in terms of a missed opportunity to supply water to additional number of people.”