Delhi Govt.’s poor management led to water crisis in Delhi : Goel

BJP workers protest water scarcity across the city. 

 New Delhi, May 17 : The Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party today slammed the Congress government for leaving most parts of the Capital thirsty during ongoing summers. The party workers held a demonstration to protest the poor water management by Delhi government leading to massive shortages of water across the city. The demonstration led by Delhi BJP President Shri Vijay Goel was held at ITO where police used water cannons and lathicharged them. 

“The crisis is so acute and the common people are in such a desperate situation that that Delhi could face severe water riots in days to come as it has happened earlier also,” Delhi BJP President Shri Vijay Goel said while addressing a demonstration held by BJP workers to protest acute water scarcity. 

“Ironically, while the water tariff has been increases from 35 paisa per litre to Rs 35 per litre during Congress regime in Delhi, there is unabated deterioration in water supply across the Capital,” he added. 

In fact, the residents of the city have overwhelmingly passed a verdict against the Sheila Dikshit led Congress government for mishandling the situation on water supply front in a CAG report. 

Citing the latest CAG report on this issue Shri Goel said, responding to a CAG questionnaire 78.38% RWAs claimed that they did not receive sufficient water in summer, 57.66% RWAS complained that they received water for less than two hours a day in summers 53.15% RWAs felt that water supplied by DJB was unfit for drinking in summer. 

More than 1600 unauthorised colonies in the city housing a population of no less than 60 lakh are worst hit with almost no piped water supply available there. “The lip service of Congress leaders cannot quench the thirst of millions in this city. The tall promises and false claims by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who also heads the Delhi Jal Board, are adding insult to injury of Delhi residents. The fact is that the CAG reports and several other inquiries have exposed massive corruption in Delhi Jal Board which has led to this water crisis,” Shri Goel said. 

While the Delhi government often tries to shift blame on less water coming from Haryana for for poor water supply in Delhi, the fact remains that 40 per cent of the water is getting wasted through leaky pipelines of Delhi Jal Board. “If we could stop leakage itself, it could salvage the situation to a great extent but not even one tenth of the total 10000 Km plus pipelines of DJB have been overhauled during Congress rule.” 

Delhi requires close to 4200 Million Liters (ML) every day, while it gets supplied only 3200 ML from all the sources. After loss of water due to leakages from its DJB’s network water supply pipelines, the city effectively ends up with just 1900 ML of water every day for a population of more than 160 lakhs, providing just 120 liters of water on an average for a person. The basic minimum requirement for a person is 250 litres. 

Thus the common people have to buy water from private suppliers at exorbitant prices to fill this gap of 130 litres. 

The poor water management by DJB is also reflected in the unequal distribution of water. While People in New Delhi Municipal Corporation area get 489 liters per person every day, Cantonment area gets 515 liters, whereas most of the other areas in the city do not get even one fourth of this quantity. 

Due to this poor water management, the groundwater table has declined dramatically during the last few years in the city and Congress government has done nothing to rectify this scary situation. 

In South Delhi and parts of Southwest Delhi the water table has dropped by about 70 feet over the last 10 years. In the remaining parts of South Delhi, Southwest and whole of West Delhi, the groundwater level has fallen between 13 and 33 feet. In North, Northeast, East, and parts of Northwest and West Delhi, the drop is between 6.6 and 13 feet. 

“Any government would be blind not to see that the city is going to get caught in the vicious web of a permanent crisis if the situation is not improved, but this government has given a free hand to tanker mafia to extract groundwater and sell that at exorbitant prices while the common people bear the irony of having permanently dry taps in their homes,” Shri Goel said. 

He added, “Delhi has recently been ranked the worst environmental performer in the country, according to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) devised by the Planning Commission. One of the parameters was its very low score on the status of ground water and annual recharge.” 

“It is clear that the water crisis in the city is a result of poor water management by Delhi Jal Board aided by massive corruption in DJB and a clearly obvious plan to protect and promote tanker mafia by Congress government. This is a betrayal of the trust of common people which is condemnable,” Shri Goel said. 

Several BJP leaders including Delhi BJP general secretary Ramesh Bidhuri and South Delhi District BJP President and several other leaders of the party. 

Later addressing the meeting of Delhi BJP’s new office bearers, Shri Goel urged them to take the Congress government head on. The BJP President has also directed all the party legislators to identify the local issues where Delhi government has failed to provide respite to common people such as power, water and social security schemes and make people aware about the misdeeds of the Congress government. While doing this, the legislators would also look out for innovative ways and means to resolve these issues at their level to the maximum possible extent, said Shri Goel.