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Gurugram: Drinking water supply likely to be hit as raw water input from Yamuna declines
The GMDA supplies 570 MLD of water daily to the city from its Basai and Chandu Budhera plants, where it treats the raw water, it gets from the Yamuna supplied by the irrigation department
Gurugram: For people living in Gurugram already grappling with a water crisis, drinking water will now be in short supply as the raw water input sent to the Basai and Chandu Budhera water treatment plants has dipped considerably in the last 15 days, officials aware of the matter said. Normally, the city gets supply of about 250 cusecs from the NCR water channel and the Gurugram water channel but in the last fortnight, the supply has reduced to an average 190 cusecs, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) officials said.
They said that while they maintain a minimum of 3 days of water supply at their plants, the reduced input of raw water has brought down the buffer stock to two days at present.
The GMDA supplies 570 MLD of water daily to the city from its Basai and Chandu Budhera plants, where it treats the raw water, it gets from the Yamuna supplied by the irrigation department.
According to the authority, the demand in the city has surged in the last few years due to a steep rise in population in developing residential sectors. Despite having a buffer of three-days water supply for the city, any reduction in availability of raw water from Yamuna significantly impacts the storage and is also expected to hit the drinking water supply if the shortage continues for too long.
Since the beginning of the summer, several areas in Gurugram particularly at the tail-end such as DLF phase two, areas around Sector 57, plotted colonies along the Golf Course Road, sectors 21, 22, 23 and Palam Vihar have been facing water shortage.
A senior GMDA official said that there has been shortage of raw water supply for the last 15 days, and they have been getting an average 190 cusecs of water at its plants, while the normal supply is 250 cusecs. “Due to the shortage in raw water supply, the buffer stock at our plants has reduced and if this trend continues, then we will have to ration the supply to the city. The authority stocks three days of water supply at its two plants but the buffer has now reduced,” he said.
“Currently, the treatment plant at Basai has a buffer storage that will last for about 1.5 days as we have supplied the spare capacity to city residents. The buffer stock at the Chandu Budhera plant has dipped from three days to two days and if the supply does not improve then we will be in a tricky situation,” he added.
GMDA officials said that they have taken up the matter with officials of the irrigation department at the highest level. The irrigation department supplies raw water sourced from the Yamuna and from Kakroi headworks to the two plants. “The matter has been taken up and we are expecting the supply to improve within a day or two,” the official cited above said.
One cusec of water is equal to 2.45 MLD (million litre per day) and the irrigation department supplies water in cusecs to the city as it deals in large volumes, GMDA officials said.
A senior irrigation department official, when asked about the matter said that the raw water supply was normal and only on a single day it had fluctuated due to a technical glitch. “There is no need to worry about supply as fluctuation happened on a single day. Raw water supply will remain constant in the coming days,” he said.
