Now, NDMC areas hit by water shortfall; Wazirabad levels drop

NDMC has warned of a curtailed supply in the command areas of Tilak Marg and Bengali market UGRs, where water will only be available once a day, in the morning.

A shortage in water supply, which has been plaguing parts of the Capital, has now eclipsed areas in Lutyens Delhi where two of the underground reservoirs at Tilak Marg and Bengali Market recorded a 40% shortfall, the New Delhi Municipal Council said on Monday.

Delhi water minister Atishi inspects the Wazirabad water treatment plant on Monday. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

The development came even as the Wazirabad barrage — a crucial link supplying raw water to Delhi’s key water treatment plants — has reported a drop in water levels. The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) supplies water to its three water treatment plants from the barrage. On Monday, several sections of the sand-bed had started to become visible. The Wazirabad WTP supplies water to New Delhi, central Delhi and parts of north Delhi.

An NDMC official said that due to supply shortage, areas such as Bengali Market, Ashoka Road, Harichand Mathur Lane, Copernicus Marg, Purana Quila Road, Babar Road, Barakhamba, KG Marg, Windsor Place, Firozshah Marg, and Canning Lane were impacted. This is the first time supply in parts of Lutyens Delhi has been hit.

NDMC said that, according to information from DJB, potable water production from the Wazirabad WTP was not running at full capacity due to the unavailability of raw water. NDMC has warned of a curtailed supply in the command areas of Tilak Marg and Bengali market UGRs, where water will only be available once a day, in the morning.

To be sure, unlike other parts of the city where DJB is the water utility, NDMC treats and manages the supply network of New Delhi on its own. However, the civic body depends on DJB for raw water supply to the area.

“Consumers of the affected areas may contact our control room for tankers on phone numbers — 011-23360683 and 011-23743642,” the official added.

The civic body has also appealed to people to use water judiciously. “Don’t use drinking water for car washing and adapting micro irrigation techniques for garden or plantation,” the council said in a statement.

Residents in the area said the water supply timings have reduced over the last two days. “Earlier, we received supply for over four hours, which has now gone down to just 40 minutes. The RO system is not functioning properly and even after the water is filtered, it has an aftertaste. We are now relying on canned water,” said Alka Batra, a resident of the Bhagwan Dass Road area. Batra said that the houses do not have water pumps as the water supply pressure used to be high. “Now, the water is not reaching the first floor as the pressure is low,” she added.

At the Wazirabad barrage, the water level dropped to 668.3 ft against the normal level of 674.5 ft on Monday. The Wazirabad WTP consequently supplied just 86.2 million gallons per day (mgd) of water against its capacity of 134 mgd. This shortage translates to reduced water pressure, and supply timings along with acute shortages in the tail-end areas. Many filtration units were lying non-operational in the absence of water on Monday.

Water minister Atishi, who inspected the facility on Monday, said that the barrage water level is so low that mud islands have become visible, reiterating her appeal to Haryana to “release water”. “The area supplies water to Wazirabad, Chandrawal and Okhla WTPs where the water production is now affected. Emergency measures were being taken to ensure that the plant continues to operate, including recycling water, to ensure continuous flow. Even though the supply situation slightly improved on Monday after hitting the season’s lowest level over the weekend, Delhi still faced a shortfall of 83 mgd of water against the target of 1,000 mgd.

At the Wazirabad facility, an official displayed the data records of pumping stations at various stages of purification to indicate the scale of the problem. “If additional water is not released, the city will continue to face the crisis till the monsoons,” the official said.