The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Water crisis: L-G calls Atishi’s letter ‘insensitive’; she hits back
CALLING A letter from Delhi Minister Atishi over water shortage in parts of Delhi “insensitive”, Lieutenant Governor (L-G) V KS axe na, in an open letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, said that she was using the murder of a woman in Shahdara for “narrow political goals”.
Reacting to this, Atishi called Saxena’s open letter “unfortunate”, as he had “shown apathy towards the city’s water woes”.
In a letter to Saxena a day after a woman was stabbed to death in Shah dar a following a quarrel over using water from a community tap, at is hi has demanded that the D el hij al board ceo be suspended and an enquiry be set up to look into the actions of the chief secretary, among other officers.
Saxena’s Tuesday letter was addressed to Kejriwal, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate( ED) in the Delhi excise policy case. theed has alleged that bribes were paid to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its leaders in exchange for a policy that favoured certain liquor business men. pointing out that direct communication withkejriwalwa snot possible, Saxena wrote: “I was deeply distressed at the insensitive communication from Water
Minister Atishi on Sunday... She haschosentousetheunfortunate deathofawomanineastdelhifor narrow, partisan political goals.”
Atishi, meanwhile, said she was also “disappointed” at the missive from the L-G as it was writtenaftersherequestedhimto “suspend an officer who has repeatedly refused, failed to carry outhisduties,which,ifhehadundertaken on time, would have avertedthecrisisthatthenational capital is facing this summer”.
Saxena,callingatishi’snotean “admission of guilt” of “inaction and inefficiency over the past 10 years”, said that similar incidents tookplaceindelhiovertheyears. “Your minister’s hasty missive to me is an admission of these failures and defaults of performance of your government, and amount to facile attempts at shrugging responsibility off, a complex problem,” Saxena said, adding that while Delhi’s population had increased by 15 per cent over the past decade, the water treatment capacity grew from 906 to 946 million gallons daily.
He also said that the percentage of unaccounted for water — attributed to leakages, theft, and non-payment of bills — increased from 45% in 2015 to 58% in 20222023. “It simply shows that there has been no efforts, whatsoever, have been made in the past 10 years for plugging the leaks; we seem to be spending thousands of crores in pumping water into a leaking bucket,” the L-G wrote.
Atishi said :“In this long period,you have maintained stoic silence and complete apathy towards the water-related woes of people of Delhi. But when the actual culprit of this criminal negligence, misfeasance was brought before you, that was when you decided to speak in his defence ...”