Noida, Ghaziabad brace for dry days, as Dasna reservoir fails to take off
Ghaziabad and Noida will begin to feel the impact of the shutdown of Ganga water supply from the Upper Ganga Canal (UGC) from Thursday.
Ghaziabad and Noida will begin to feel the impact of the shutdown of Ganga water supply from the Upper Ganga Canal (UGC) from Thursday. But the long-pending proposal for constructing a channel gate near Dasna has not materialised yet. The gate was supposed to hold Ganga water during days the canal was closed, and provide extra water for nearly 10 days, to residential areas.
Officials said residents of Ghaziabad and Noida will face shortage of water supply till November 10.
“The gate was supposed to be built at Dasna, near NH-24. This was supposed to hold water sufficient for nearly 10 days during the annual closure of the UGC. But the gate at Dasna has not come up over the canal. We have paid up more than Rs 2.5 crore out of Rs 4.21 crore for the gate channel to come up. The irrigation department is repeatedly asking for funds, but we insist that they start work first,” said RK Agarwal, project manager at Pratap Vihar treatment plants, UP Jal Nigam.
The UGC carries nearly 13,000 cusec of water at any point of time. Last year, its capacity was around 10,500 cusec. It was upgraded this year.
“We held meeting recently, with irrigation department officials at Bulandshahr and we came to know that the department has floated tenders. At present, since there is no channel gate, the entire water escapes and cannot be held up for storage,” he added.
Officials said that earlier the annual closure was nearly 20 days, but for past couple of years the annual cleaning time spanned nearly one month. As per the tentative schedule this year, the UGC was to close down from October 10-11 to November 10-11 for the annual cleaning and desilting exercise.
On their part, officials of UP irrigation department said they required full payment from UP Jal Nigam.
“We require full payment before the work can start. Tender for the work is done and the work will require nearly 2-3 months for completion. The gate will be constructed near Dasna at the UGC,” said Arvind Yadav, executive engineer, UP Irrigation Department.
The UGC begins from Haridwar and goes further towards Murad Nagar and Dasna in Ghaziabad. The Ganga water is taken to the two water treatment plants at Pratap Vihar with the help of pipelines and is supplied to both Ghaziabad and Noida.
One of the operational 120MLD capacity Ganga water plants at Pratap Vihar supplies 45 MLD to Noida and another 75 MLD to trans-Hindon areas in Ghaziabad. The second 245 MLD plant has also started supplies and constructed for providing 200 MLD to Noida and 45 MLD to Ghaziabad.