Court will decide water issue: DJB vice-chairman

NEW DELHI : The government will wait for the Supreme Court’s intervention to avoid another possible water crisis in the city as Haryana will provide 450 cusecs of water through the Yamuna only till May 15, the Delhi Jal Board said .

On Monday, a Supreme Court bench had asked the two states to sit and come up with a possible solution. But Delhi Jal Board vice-chairman Dinesh Mohaniya on Saturday said no solution could be reached by the two states. “The stalemate continues. Haryana will continue to supply the 450 cusecs of water through Yamuna but till May 15. After that, they will stop. Now only the court can decide the fate water for the city,” Mohaniya said.

Delhi gets 1,133 cusecs water from Haryana. Of this 683 cusecs per day comes through the Munak canal, 330 through the Delhi sub-branch canal while the remaining through the Yamuna river, Jal board officials say.

Haryana is now giving more water, 450 cusecs in total through the Yamuna, after the court order. But, according to DJB officials, they will give this amount till May 15.

Of the 900 MGD of water distributed in Delhi, nearly 60% comes from Haryana through the Yamuna.

Since January 30, the 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.

The areas affected by the water crisis were west, north, central Delhi, parts of south Delhi, including the Delhi Cantonment and NDMC areas.

“A minimum level of 674.5ft is required to be maintained at the Wazirabad pond for the proper functioning of the water treatment plant. This, in March and the first few days of April, dropped to 669 feet and water production suffered. As of now, the level is as much as 679 feet and situation has normalised. But things can go south again the moment Haryana stops sending water through the Yamuna,” a DJB official said.

The Supreme Court on Monday had directed the chief secretaries of Delhi and Haryana and the secretary of the ministry of water resources to hold a meeting immediately to discuss and sort out the issues relating to the supply of Yamuna river water to the national capital.

The apex court said this after chief secretaries of Delhi and Haryana, who were both present in the court during the hearing, raised some issues regarding the minutes of the meeting held earlier between them.