Temporary closure of Ganga plant hits Ghaziabad water supply

The Ganga water supply took a hit due to the temporary closure of the Upper Ganga Canal.

The Ganga water supply to Ghaziabad and Noida took a hit due to the temporary closure of the Upper Ganga Canal (UGC), which is flooded due to the heavy rainfall in Uttarakhand over the past few days. Also, the canal has a heavy deposit of silt and debris as a result of landslides in the upper reaches of that state.

One of the 50 cusecs plants completely shut down on Sunday night because of non-availability of water. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The officials at Ganga water plant in Pratap Vihar said they are already running low on Ganga water and one of the their 50 cusecs plants completely shut down on Sunday night due to non-availability of water.

“We received a message from officials about the temporary closure of the UGC due to silt deposit. The water in the canal has receded and the 50 cusecs plant had to be shut down on Sunday night. This plant supplies 20 cusecs to Noida and 30 cusecs to trans-Hindon areas of Ghaziabad,” said RK Agarwal, project manager, Ganga water treatment plant in Pratap Vihar. “The second 100 cusecs plant was already running on 50 cusecs capacity. With the temporary closure, this is presently running on 25 cusecs capacity. We are hopeful that the supply to the canal will be resumed soon,” he said.

The second 100 cusecs plant was constructed to supply 80 cusecs to Noida and the remaining 20 cusecs to Ghaziabad.

Officials of the Ghaziabad development authority said due to short supply, they will distribute water from tubewells to residential areas.

“We have nearly 12 tubewells and we will provide water from these to the localities. However, the water supply may not be high as provided by the Ganga water plant,” said Chakresh Jain, executive engineer, GDA.

“It was a temporary closure and the supply resumed in the UGC on Sunday night. The water will reach Ghaziabad by Monday evening and normal supply will resume by Tuesday forenoon. We had to shut down the canal as silt removal takes time,” said SK Sharma, chief engineer (Ganga), Meerut.