Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday pulled up officials for laxity in the government’s ambitious water augmentation project.
At a review meeting, he said Delhi needs 1,260 million gallons of water a day (MGD), but the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) supplies just 990 MGD.
“Without the delay, the water supply capacity should have reached 1,110 MGD, but there is a shortfall. It is a sensitive matter for Delhi. We must not leave any stone unturned in this process. There is no room for pendencies now. We have to work on water augmentation on priority,” a statement quoted the chief minister as saying.
Given the situation, he said, Delhi must augment groundwater and the DJB should explore the possibility of developing a tube-well network across the city.
“Many areas, including Yamuna floodplains, have a high water table and we can start extracting groundwater from there,” he said.
The chief minister also said there has been a delay in the project involving the release of treated sewage from the Coronation Pillar water treatment plant into the Yamuna at Palla (upstream) and lifting it again at Wazirabad.
He asked officials to clear the pendency immediately and ensure the project gets tendered by the end of the month.
Under the government’s tube well project, 117 tube wells are to be developed at Palla, 100 at Bhalswa Lake, seven at Akshardham, eight at Noida More, four at Mundka, 15 around the Bawana WTP, seven at Okhla, and three at Dichaon.
While reviewing the ongoing projects, Kejriwal observed that the progress at Palla and Bawana is not up to the mark.
He also asked officers to provide sewer connections to every household in Delhi on a war footing.
All houses in northeast Delhi and east Delhi will be connected to the sewer network by June, he said.
“One of our priorities is to connect the entire to the sewer network, so that untreated water does drain into the Yamuna. The Household Sewer Connection Project and the Yamuna cleaning project will now be reviewed every 15 days,” he said.
The DJB officials said of the 16,18,080 houses in 1,799 unauthorised colonies of Delhi, 3,40,720 have already been connected to the sewer network.
They said 747 unauthorised colonies have already been connected to the sewer network and the work is underway in 573 colonies.