Parched despite ‘high’ supply

While authorities feel it is the unplanned vertical growth that is responsible for the civic crisis,experts feel the government has failed to put in serious effort in implementing augmentation schemes.

DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said in Delhi,supply was at its highest,and there was no shortfall of supply even from Haryana.

Officials in Haryana said Delhi was being supplied its entire quota of water,even at the cost of their own irrigational needs.

“One-third of the city,in the grip of a crisis,comprises areas where there is no supply of piped water. Thickly-populated unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters have to put up with the worst. Putting infrastructure in these areas is not easy,” Negi said.

He,however,accepted that it was the poor who were actually paying the heaviest price for the city’s unplanned vertical boom. The struggle for water is almost an everyday affair in areas like Mehrauli,Devli,Kondli and Sangam Vihar.

Overdrawing of underground water has led to the problem of contamination.

“Underground water is depleting fast. In areas like Paharganj,Chandni Chowk and Nabi Karim,people get water with metal content,” Negi said.

Environmentalists,however,feel the government has not played an active role in dealing with the water crisis,which had started rearing its head as early as 10 years ago.

“The government has completely failed to take any effective steps towards sound water management. Despite rainwater harvesting and waste water treatment being made mandatory by law,the government has failed to implement and save the precious resource in the absence of effective implementation,” said Vinod Kumar Jain,chairperson of NGO Tapas that has been highlighting the problem of the Capital’s depleting underground water.