No Ganga water will be supplied to Noida for a month
Residents are concerned about the quality of water from October 9 to November 10 when the Uttar Pradesh irrigation department will stop its supply of Ganga water to the city completely to clean up the Upper Ganga Canal.
Residents are concerned about the quality of water from October 9 to November 10 when the Uttar Pradesh irrigation department will stop its supply of Ganga water to the city completely to clean up the Upper Ganga Canal, forcing residents to meet their needs with groundwater. The irrigation department supplies 100 cusecs of Ganga water to Noida. According to the Noida authority, this forms 60% of the city’s water supply.
“We completely shut down water supply during this period. We aim to close supply between Dussehra and Diwali when the farmers have the least water requirement,” said SK Sharma, chief engineer, UP irrigation department, Meerut.
Residents have also expressed concern about the use of groundwater every year when the irrigation department cleans up canals. With groundwater levels already in a critical state in the Gautam Budh Nagar district, residents said the authority should develop a dedicated reservoir of Ganga water to meet the demand during the annual maintenance period.
“We will file a petition in the national green tribunal (NGT) seeking direction to Noida authority to develop a reservoir for Ganga water for uninterrupted water supply during the period in question. Noida authority has been negligent in this regard and it has ignored our complaints in the past. We feel the NGT will fix the problem now,” said Ramveer Tanwar, member, Social action for forest and environment (Safe), a Noida-based NGO.
Poor quality and low pressure of water supply have been a concern for city residents who have complained to the UP government a number of times to direct the authority to reduce Noida’s dependency on groundwater.
The city’s water demand stands at an average of 250 million litres per day (MLD) and the Noida authority said it has adequate tubewells and Ranney wells for uninterrupted water supply.
“We do not have water scarcity at all. We have more than 300 tubewells and nine Ranney wells that are enough for the daily water requirements of the city. But we do not get Ganga water supply during the maintenance period,” said Samakant Srivastava, project engineer (PE), water supply, Noida authority.