Dwarka’s quest for potable water appears to be over as Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has identified four fresh water pockets that will generate an additional 22.5 Millions of Liters per Day (MLD) water. According to the Delhi Government official, WAPCOS the consultant of DJB has identified fresh water pockets in Dwarka. Buoyed over the discovery Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal directed the officials to start harvesting water by March next as that would mitigate the water needs before Summer.
Kejriwal on Wednesday chaired a meeting on water augmentation took a slew of decisions to address the water needs of national Capital. At present Delhi is getting 850 Million Gallons of Water against required summer peak demand 951 MGD.
Chief Minister held a meeting with DJB officials and Power Minister Satyender Jain and DJB Vice Chairman Dinesh Mohaniya and discussed at length about the projects of water augmentation and also fixed March end of the current year as the completion of four projects for better water supply in the summers.
Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) also identified six-locations between Wazirabad and Okhla on the Yamuna flood plains with a potential of 383 MLD water. It is worth mentioning here that DJB is already extracting water from one or two of these locations, however as per the findings of CGWB most of the potential is still untapped.
“It was decided in the meeting that the extraction should be done for the full potential of 85 MGDs. CM said that this should be done on priority and be completed before the summers set in. This project will highly augment the water supply in Delhi,” stated an official release from the Chief Minister’s office
In another project titled restarting the closed ‘Ranney Wells and Borewells’, Kejriwal approved the pilot technique for treatment of water with ammonia in East Delhi. As per the officials, this has paved the way for re-starting the non-functional 7-ranney wells and around 125-borewells in Delhi.
Today, he discussed the restarting of these ranney wells and borewells and said, “Now the problem of ammonia in water can be handled with the new technique. The ammonia treatment plants should be put up as soon as possible to restart these non-functional units. This should be completed by March end so that there is no dearth of water in the summers.”Once these non-functional ranney wells and borewells are made functional, an additional 63 MLD of drinking water would be available for the residents of Delhi, it stated.
Importantly, Kejriwal also directed the officials to identify areas for additional bores in north and east Delhi where water table is high.
The chief minister also asked the area MLAs to help DJB in identifying locations for bores. “Additional bores can also be done in north and east Delhi areas where water table is high and the problem of ammonia can be done away with putting up the treatment plants.
These additional bores will not only make these areas self sufficient for water but will also create additional water which can be then supplied to other water scant areas of Delhi,” the Chief Minister said.