Delhi LG blames govt for water woes; AAP MLA hits out

Saxena expressed concerns over visuals showing people “risking their lives” to get one bucket of water

The Delhi government was responsible for the mismanagement leading to the water crisis in Delhi, lieutenant governor (LG) VK Saxena said in a statement issued on Friday.

VK Saxena (PTI)

He expressed concerns over visuals showing people “risking their lives” to get one bucket of water. He added that he has been informed that Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been giving their fixed quota of water to Delhi, but the “irresponsible attitude of the Delhi government” has created the crisis in Delhi.

“The reason for the severe water shortage in Delhi today is that 54% of the water being produced remains unaccounted for and 40% of water is wasted during supply due to old and dilapidated pipelines. Despite thousands of crores of rupees being spent by the Delhi government in the last 10 years, old pipelines could neither be repaired nor replaced, nor were adequate new pipelines laid. The extent is such that this water is stolen and sold to the poor people by the tanker mafia. It is unfortunate that while, on one hand, in the rich areas of Delhi, on an average, 550 litres of water is being supplied per person per day, on the other hand, in villages and slums, only 15 litres of water is being supplied on average per person per day,” LG said.

He said he has been informed that except Wazirabad, all the water treatment plants in Delhi are producing more water than their capacity. The Wazirabad treatment plant is not able to function at its full capacity because the reservoir of the barrage, where the water from Haryana is stored, is almost completely filled with silt, he added. Due to this, the capacity of this reservoir, which used to be 250 million gallons, has reduced to 16 million gallons, LG said.

“Till 2013, it was cleaned and desilted every year. But in the last 10 years, it was not cleaned even once, and every year others were blamed for lack of water. I had written a letter to the chief minister on this matter last year. I regret to say that in the last 10 years, to hide its inefficiency, it has become the habit of the Delhi government to blame others for its every failure and hide behind social media and court cases. This shortage of water in Delhi is solely the result of mismanagement by the government,” said the LG.

Vice chairman of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Somnath Bharti said that he requested LG several times to facilitate communication with state governments to barter 140 MGD treated affluent of Okhla sewage treatment plant (STP) with UP and 80 MGD treated affluent of Rithala STPs with Haryana for equivalent raw water for Delhi’s WTPs, but he laughed it off.

“At present, UP and Haryana, rather than giving treated affluent for agricultural purposes, give Ganga and Yamuna water to farmers. Farmers prefer treated affluent than raw water for better agricultural output. I say this with complete responsibility that the LG ignored all my requests and pushed Delhi to face this BJP-made water crisis. I am willing to debate with LG if he disagrees,” Bharti posted on X.