City's water woes stay afloat

With the steady rise in mercury and the dog days of summer still hanging, the National Capital continues to suffer from a spiralling water crisis. Despite the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's claims of putting in place another summer action plan. Delhi is facing a demand-supply gap of 265 million gallons a day (MGD) of drinking water. It is also fighting a festering battle with Haryana over Yamuna water sharing. The city-state is meeting its 70 per cent of water requirements from the river that has today become a sewage canal in most places. Delhi's worst-hit areas are its pockets in the southwest (rocky terrain), north floodplains (parched) and northwest.

Experts say Delhi does not actually face a crisis when it comes to availability of water. The crisis lies in its supply as there is no equity in distribution. According to informal estimations, there are leakages that account for 25 per cent of the total water produced. Unfortunately, the city's water utility — Delhi Jal Board (DJB) — has not been able to fix the problem. "We have already prepared a master plan for 2050 and are making investments accordingly to plug the leakages. London loses 26 per cent of its drinking water to leakages. We're still living in an old world," admitted a senior DJB officer.

A DRY STATE

According to DJB's own estimates, hundreds of areas are vulnerable this summer. They include: Trilokpuri, Laxmi Nagar, Pandav Nagar, Ganesh Nagar, Budh Vihar, Krishna Vihar, Mehrauli, Rajokri, Kailashpuri Extension in Dwarka, Masjid Moth and Ballimaran.

DJB's network comprises of 11,350 km long pipelines which supply water through surface and groundwater sources. But there is no dearth of parched pockets, even in localities which are in a comparatively better shape. For example, over 3.5 million people in Dwarka are forced to source 80 per cent of its water needs from private players because of a demand-supply gap of 10 MGD.

Move away from planned colonies, and the situation is even worse. Of the 3.65 million households in Delhi, as much as 20 per cent, mostly in poor settlements, have no piped water connections. People in the area can be seen lining up to fill water from tankers which often leads to clashes. Illegal borewells are depleting groundwater to further dangerous levels. Sixty-year-old Bhag Chand routinely goes to bed a worried man. His daily struggle begins at 6 am when he wakes up to fetch water for his family from a community tube well in South Delhi's Sanjay Colony. "I have been living here since 1976. I feel privileged at times if I get a few buckets of water in 2-3 days," says Chand, who works odd jobs for a living.

The 128-acre illegal slum cluster housing 40,000 people — mostly Pakistani migrants — has 17 tube wells, but most of them are defunct. Power outages for around six-to-eight hours a day make matters worse for other residents too. Water is as elusive in all 757 slum clusters registered with the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board. The situation is no better in Delhi's 1,642 registered unauthorised colonies. Clashes over water are a common sight when tankers arrive in areas such as Sangam Vihar, Aya Nagar and New Ashok Nagar.

ANTIQUATED SYSTEMS

Officials say Delhi is still dependent on a water supply system developed in the 1930s. In 2011, then DJB CEO Ramesh Negi tried to formulate a water policy for Delhi. No concrete steps or measures have been taken since then. "Without a policy, the water sector remains mired in ad hocism," he said. DJB's Action Plan 2017 claims 4,125 tube wells are already functional and that the utility will install 119 more. However, no deadline has been set for completion. An analysis of the last 10 years shows that the overall groundwater level is depleting by .02 to 1.44 metres per year due to a rise in extraction and reduced natural recharge. Delhi already has 4.5 lakh borewells, most of them are illegal.

In fact, all of Delhi is classified as a dark zone when it comes to extraction of ground water. Water levels in south Delhi areas such as Vasant Kunj, Chhatarpur and CR Park have gone down to 15-30 metres in the last decade. DJB also claims that 932 water tankers are providing water at 16,668 supply points. But residents dismiss these claims. Rahmat, 35, who lives in a slum cluster in Pancharipuri, has to fight with dozens of people for water on a daily basis. Ironically, a prominent school opposite this slum cluster uses thousands of gallons of fresh water to keep its lawns lush green.

PLUGGING A SIEVE

DJB CEO Keshav Chandra said that the department was doing its best to plug the leakages. "We've planned to install district metering systems to monitor the gap between water supplied and consumed. This will indicate leakages, whether on account of theft or mismanagement," he said. Chandra also promised to connect most households with piped water connections by year-end. However, he admitted that the plan was not technically feasible in 55 colonies.

Another 104 colonies have been found unfit for the project. In such a scenario, officials say, rainwater harvesting can help tide over the crisis to some extent. Delhi gets an average rainfall of 600 mm per year of which 80 per cent is received from July to September. But more than half of it goes into stormwater drains that mostly carry sewage. The state government needs to make a policy for rainwater harvesting and promote it aggressively.