To know about the backup planning for the water crisis, The Pioneer spoke to the senior official of DJB, a one and only leading agency that supplies potable water in the city.
“No contingency plan can actually seamlessly be fit for the national Capital if the water supply to Delhi completely stops as it happened, as Delhi does not have enough water bodies to cater to
the need of Delhi’s population,” said a Senior Delhi Jal Board official.
The official said, “There cannot be any concrete plan in the future, which can actually fulfil the scarcity of 500 to 600 MGD of water. By no means, DJB would be able to cater to demand of Delhi’s population, when there is no water in the city at all. Delhi does not have water resources inside the city. The best of water bodies can sustain you for a day or not even a day. Delhi needs at least 820 MGDs of water per day and if you just calculate the volume of water existing in the city, we cannot achieve that mark. If we include all the water bodies, even then you cannot survive for a day.”
As of now, Delhi has only a few water resources such as Yamuna River, Bhalswa lake, Sanjay lake and Bhatti Mines lake. “Even if I process the water of all these lakes, it means either I have to set up WTPs near to lakes or I have to bring water to Water Treatment Plants by laying pipes. This will take time; laying pipeline is very tall order,” added the official.
Saying that it is always good to have some plan instead of no plan at all, the official said, “The best we can do is that we can rejuvenate water bodies, examining water quality and taking more interventions such as extracting ground water for which we are looking for more areas. Also, rainwater harvesting is other way like rainy wells in Palla region,” said the official.
At present, Delhi Jal Board supplies about 80 million gallons per day of ground water for drinking purpose to households after treating the water, informed the official.