Delhi Budget: Govt to boost water supply by 25% by March 2025

The Capital will aim to boost its water production from the current 995MGD (million gallons per day) to 1,240MGD by March 2025, Gahlot said, outlining a two-pronged approach to achieve this target

The Delhi government has planned a 25% increase in the city’s water supply over the next two years to meet the rising demand levels, especially in summer, state finance minister Kailash Gahlot said during his Budget address on Wednesday.

In its Economic Survey released on Monday, the government said the Delhi Jal Board’s production capacity had increased 13% in 10 years. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

The Capital will aim to boost its water production from the current 995MGD (million gallons per day) to 1,240MGD by March 2025, Gahlot said, outlining a two-pronged approach to achieve this target.

“The first is to increase the level of ground water and second is to harvest the rain water flowing on the roads of Delhi during the rainy season,” he said.

Delhi, at its peak, needs 1,260MGD water a day.

In its Economic Survey released on Monday, the government said the Delhi Jal Board’s production capacity had increased 13% in 10 years.

However, the budgetary allocation for the water sector has dipped from ₹7,610 crore (which was 10% of that year’s expenditure) to ₹6,342 crore (8%).

To be sure, the allocation for water last year was a significant jump from the year before, when the state government set aside ₹3274 crore (5%) for the sector.

Delhi suffers from a water supply shortfall nearly throughout a year, with the problem hitting crippling levels during the summer months. Water supply between May and July is often affected in several neighbourhoods across the city, especially the ones serviced by water from the polluted and parched Yamuna river.

The Capital sources around 612.5MGD of its daily water supply from Yamuna and two linked canals, 254MGD water from Ganga via the Upper Ganga Canal and the rest from groundwater resources (tube-wells and ranney wells).

Explaining the government’s plan to bridge this gap, Gahlot said that the state’s pilot project of harvesting flood water in outer north Delhi’s Palla is recharging the ground table with 800-1,000MGD water a year.

This project, which began in 2019, has pushed up the level of groundwater by about two metres, he said.

“In addition to recharging the excess water during the rains in the Yamuna, water recharge projects are underway across Delhi on a large scale,” he added.

During the next year, the government plans to add capacity to recharge 100 MGD water through lakes and other sources. This will be extracted using tubewells to augment the water supply.

To conserve water, the minister said that the government is also working to ensure that potable water is only used for drinking, and not other domestic or commercial purposes.

Gahlot also said that the state government, in its efforts to reduce Delhi’s reliance for water on other states, will focus on two moves — cleaning the Yamuna and ensuring the supply of clean water round the clock.

“DJB has ensured that a network of water pipelines has been laid in almost 93% of the unauthorised colonies of Delhi. The lines have been laid in 1671 colonies and water released in 1,630 out of them. In 2015, only 985 unauthorised colonies had water,” he added.

Delhi has 1,799 unauthorised colonies.