At a time when water scarcity is a burning issue in the city, the lone water supply plant of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda), located at the fag end of Basai, does not even have power backup. With power disruptions being a perennial problem in these parts, the plant cannot supply water even hours after a power cut.
As a result, the residents of old Gurgaon have been reeling under severe water crisis for the past three weeks and the residents of DLF City are likely to stage a protest on Monday. “We have been purchasing water from private suppliers for the past two weeks. The DLF management says that Huda has not supplied water which has virtually led to the scarcity,” said Joginder Singh, a resident of DLF Phase-III, the locality hit worst by the scarcity.
According to a senior Huda official, a minor tripping (even by a fraction of a minute) in the electricity supply is enough to disrupt smooth water supply to the entire city for two hours minimum.
The Basai plant gets its power supply from two feeders at Daulatabad and Sector 10A and power cuts and trippings are perennial problems. A long power cut (two to three hours for example) is bound to disturb the water supply for 24 hours and to resume the normal water supply in pipelines the Huda needs to run all the motors for seven hours minimum.