In an attempt to conserve the excess water being accumulated in Yamuna, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is planning to construct three stream storage dams on the river. The project is expected to meet the current raw water deficit of around 200 million gallons per day (MGD).
“To bridge the gap of around 200 MGD in raw water needs of the Capital, DJB has been pursuing the matter of construction of three stream storage dams on the river Yamuna. Also, the construction of raw water link mains from Haiderpur to Wazirabad has been completed which will facilitate transfer of raw water from one plant to the other,” said Chief Executive officer of DJB Debashree Mukherjee.
She was addressing the mediaperson during budget presentation of the board along with Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Thursday. On the occasion, Mukherjee also spoke about the preparedness of DJB to meet the expected water demand of consumers in the city this summer.
“To make water supply to consumers more efficient and equitable while bearing in mind the feedback from consumers in the last summer with regard to infrastructure improvement, DJB has drafted a renewed Summer Action Plan. A detailed execution plan taking care of complaint redressal and identification of water deficient areas is already in place,” she added.
She said DJB was currently producing 835 (MGD) million gallon per day of water to meet the demand of 18 million people in the city. She further informed besides this, several underground reservoirs with booster pumping stations are scheduled to be constructed this year. This is said to improve the distribution network for supplying water to people residing in the far flung areas. “200 kms of old pipelines are being replaced and 300 kms of new pipelines are being added to cover additional areas,” said Mukherjee.
It was also stated the water utility has undertaken rehabilitation of its vital trunk sewerage network. These new Trunk Services are expected to extend sewerage facilities to new areas especially in North and West Delhi including unauthorised colonies, urban villages and some regularised colonies.
The board has also approved for installation of automated water meters with remote reading device capable of transmitting data through Global Positioning System (GPS) technology.
Mukherjee said waste water treatment capacity will be further augmented to 628 MGD in 2013-14 after commissioning of Yamuna Vihar, Kondli, Kapashera and Chilla water treatment plants.
She said `890 crore will be spent on augmenting water supply network while `774.80 crore has been set aside to lay new sewer lines. She apprised the board that for modernising the distribution network, the Government has already approved the financial assistance of `1,665 crore. The project to modernise the Chandrawal water treatment plant has been sanctioned for an amount of `2,018 crore as externally aided project under Japan International Cooperation Agency
funding.