Water from Haryana yet to reach Delhi
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Tuesday said water from Haryana is yet to reach Delhi which can result in a crisis.
The DJB’S observation came a day after the Supreme Court was informed that chief secretary level talks between the two states had taken place to resolve the dispute over sharing of Yamuna water.
The DJB on Monday had said that Haryana had started releasing water and it will take couple of days to restore the pond levels in Wazirabad reservoir.
DJB vice-chairman Dinesh Mohaniya on Tuesday said that even after 36 hours, water coming from Haryana through the Yamuna is yet to reach the Wazirabad pond. “The water is not reaching Delhi. Yesterday, there was a 65MGD or 120 cusec water shortage. The functioning of Chandrawal and Wazirabad water treatment plant has been impacted,” Mohaniya said.
According to a senior DJB official, it will take time for the water to reach Delhi through the river.
“Haryana is releasing water but first it will need to saturate the river. Right now, ther river is all sandy and the water is being soaked by the river. We are expecting some of the 120 cusec (65MGD) of water to reach by Wednesday,” he said.
Delhi gets 1,133 cusec water from Haryana. Of this 683 cusecs per day comes through the Munak canal, 330 cusecs per day through the Delhi sub-branch canal while the remaining through the Yamuna river.
Since January 30, DJB has been facing problems in treating water as three of its plants at Wazirabad, Chandrawal and Haidarpur have not been running at full capacity due to high levels of ammonia in the Yamuna and, lesser quantity of water coming from Haryana.
Of the 900 MGD of water distributed in Delhi, nearly 60% comes from Haryana through the Yamuna.
The areas affected by the water crisis are west, north, central Delhi, parts of south Delhi, including the Delhi Cantonment and NDMC areas. Residents have been advised to store sufficient quantity of water in advance as per their requirement.