AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal announces 4th poll promise: 24×7 water supply in Delhi

After the party declared candidates for all 70 seats, Kejriwal made three big announcements in the past week — Rs 2,100 allowance for women per month (Mahila Samman Yojana); free healthcare for senior citizens aged above 60 years (Sanjeevani Yoajana); and scholarship for students from reserved categories (Ambedkar Yojana).

In his address, the AAP chief said before the party came to power in 2015, “50-60% of households relied on water tankers for clean water… and the water tanker mafia ruled Delhi”.

“But today, I’m happy to say that over 97% of households are getting water directly from pipelines. Presently, the whole of Delhi is not getting 24-hour supply or clean water but the initiative has begun today…,” he added.

Outlining a plan to meet the extra water requirements, the former CM said, “… I am an engineer, I have made plans. Currently, Delhi gets 900 MGD (million gallons per day) of water. Now, to provide 24×7 water supply, we need approximately 1,250 MGD. First, we will get 100 MGD from groundwater by drilling borewells along the Yamuna banks.”

“There are plans to install 2,500 tubewells across the city and extract 200 MGD of water from the Trans-Yamuna area,” he said, adding that locations have also been identified.

But, the AAP chief added, the water belt along the Trans-Yamuna area is not clean. “So, we’ve made plans to install a de-ammonisation plant and RO plant to make the water potable. It will then be sent to underground reservoirs and supplied to your households,” he said.

On meeting the rest of the demand, Kejriwal said “underground aquifers have been identified in South and Southwest Delhi”. “We will install RO plants and get 100 MGD of water from here. The remaining 100 MGD will be produced through tubewells installed along the Yamuna banks between Wazirabad and Palla.”

“These combined efforts aim to generate an additional 400 MGD of water, thus increasing Delhi’s production capacity to 1,400 MGD,” Kejriwal said.

Ensuring people that this initiative will be implemented across the city in the coming years if the party returns to power, he also apologised for the delay in executing the project which the AAP had promised during the 2020 Assembly polls.
“I am sorry for the delay in implementing the project but it was due to multiple reasons. First, it was due to Covid which took up 2.5 years… The next two years, our team was shattered after they arrested us in false and fabricated cases. Humari team teetar beetar ho gayi thi, kabhi Manish jail mai, kabhi mai or kabhi Satyender Jain. Par abhi hum us nipat liye. (Our team was shattered due to false cases, but it is sorted now),” he said.
Meanwhile, BJP and Congress hit out at AAP. Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva said, “Kejriwal has been selling the dream of 24-hour water supply since 2013, but the reality is that in many areas of Delhi, water is supplied only once every two days.”

Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav called it another false promise of Kejriwal. “His free, round-the-clock water supply promise becomes a reality only when monsoon rain floods the streets of Delhi.”