Army, NDRF teams deployed as parts of Capital remain flooded; drinking water supply affected

Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the situation on Thursday evening, and Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday morning.

Besides over a dozen NDRF teams, L-G House officials said over 50 personnel of the Army’s Corps of Engineers were deployed to repair the embankment near the malfunctioning drain regulator, where a breach had caused the Yamuna water to gush into the drain, damaging its regulator.

The regulator, at Drain No. 12 near the WHO building, meant for the flow of rainwater from the city into the Yamuna, could not withstand the water pressure, leading to reverse flow.

The embankment was expected to be repaired till midnight, following which work to repair the malfunctioning regulator was scheduled to begin.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who inspected repair work at the site, said the regulator was damaged at about 7 pm on Thursday. “This is the biggest crisis that we are facing at the time. A regulator has been breached as the flow of water was very high. Now that so many teams are working on this matter, I sincerely hope that we will be able to control the problem at the earliest,” he said.

L-G Saxena and Delhi Ministers Saurabh Bhardwaj and Atishi also visited the site.

The water level of the Yamuna, which touched 208.66 metres at 6 pm on Thursday — over a metre more than the previous record of 207.49 metres reported in 1978 – maintained a gradual, though slow, decline throughout the day. It was 208.12 metres at 8 pm Friday, still well above the river’s “danger” mark of 205.33 metres.

Meanwhile, the supply of potable water was affected across the capital. With a deficit of 265 MGD (million gallons per day) in water supply, the water treatment plant at Okhla, with a capacity of 20 MGD, was made functional. The remaining two plants, in Wazirabad and Chandrawal, remained shut.

“By tomorrow night, we should have Chandrawal functional, and by day after (Sunday) morning we should have Wazirabad functional. The water level at Wazirabad needs to drop by at least 2 feet more. The functioning of the plant depends on that. We are anticipating that by tomorrow morning, it may fall by another 2 feet,” said Delhi Jal Board (DJB) Vice Chairman Somnath Bharti.

The Sonia Vihar water treatment plant, which has a total capacity of 140 MGD, was functioning at 95% of its capacity on Friday, he said.