The Capital gasped under a sweltering sun on Monday because neighbouring Haryana refused to entertain the Delhi governments request to release more water into the Yamuna river. Most taps in the city remained dry and the shearing 41.4 degrees Celsius the maximum temperature that was at least two notches above normal aggravated the discomfort level. To make matters worse,the minimum temperature was 30 degrees Celsius. Its been almost 13 days since water supply to parts of West,North and Northwest Delhi has been affected with Haryana curtailing Delhis share by 22 million gallons per day (MGD) through the Munak Canal. The situation worsened after the 220 MGD Haiderpur water treatment plant had to be shut down after a 1,000 MM diameter pipeline that feeds the Palam reservoir burst near Madhuban Chowk late on Friday night. Though the city-state re-appealed to Haryana to release more water into the Yamuna,there seems little hope for its acute water woes to end soon after the neighbouring state cited a similar crisis to turn down Delhi Chief Secretary P K Tripathis request at a meeting with his counterpart P K Chaudhary. When asked about the outcome of the meeting,Tripathi said both sides have agreed to improve coordination on how much water Delhi should withdraw from the Yamuna barrage for the Wazirabad and Haiderpur treatment plants. Sources said Tripathi had requested Chaudhary to provide additional water to Delhi apart from daily supply of 1,000 cusecs,but the Haryana Chief Secretary declined. This triggered a severe water crisis in thickly populated areas in South,Central and East Delhi since Saturday morning. The damaged pipeline at Madhuban Chowk that carries up to 16 million gallons per day to the Palam reservoir compounded the problem. This means about 75 per cent of the total supply to the reservoir,which pumps about 21 million gallons to South Delhi areas,had stopped completely. To tide over the crisis,the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has started rationing water supply. Additional tankers have been pressed into service and supply to the Palam reservoir was made through other sources to provide interim relief to the affected colonies of south and southwest Delhi, a DJB spokesperson said. The DJB blamed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for the damage,reportedly because of water accumulation in the excavated pit for the multi-level car parking project of the civic agency. Site inspection and analysis of the ground situation has revealed that the sub-soil water level inside the excavated pit for the MCDs multi-level car parking project had risen during the past two-three days because water from borewells were not taken out in view of a labour dispute. The rise in the water table resulted in saturation of soil around the excavated pit, a DJB statement said. This damaged the pipeline, a Jal board official said. An MCD school building and shops in Shiva Market developed cracks because of the soil caving into the pit. The DJB spokesperson said the pipeline has been repaired and supply would be restored by Tuesday morning. North Municipal Corporation spokesperson Yogendra Mann said it was too early blame the civic agency for the incident. The corporation has ordered an independent inquiry to ascertain the reasons behind water accumulation at the site, he said.
