Delhi is facing a 50 million gallons per day shortfall in water production and the present crisis can not be solved by merely restraining the tanker mafia, the AAP government's Water Minister Atishi said on Thursday.
"There is no large-scale leakage, it's a rumour. Leakages, if any, in the pipelines are repaired within 12 hours," Atishi claimed, adding that a recent audit shows that water leakage in Delhi is lesser than international standards.
There is a genuine water crisis in the city, Atishi said in a press conference and appealed to people to avoid water wastage.
She said the average water production in Delhi has fallen considerably from 1,000-1,005 million gallons per day (MGD) six days ago due to a lack of adequate supply of raw water through the Yamuna River and other sources.
"On June 12 it was 951 MGD. It means production has decreased by 50 MGD in Delhi due to shortage of water, leading to scarcity in areas at the tail end of the water pipeline network," she said.
The plight of Delhiites braving an unprecedented high summer heat has been further aggravated by an acute shortage of water supply in the city. The ruling AAP and BJP are involved in a blame game as the city grapples with one of its worst water crises in recent years.
Atishi asserted that the Arvind Kejriwal government has been taking all measures to prevent leakage and wastage of water.
Delhi government teams have so far issued 1,323 challans to people for water wastage while 179 unauthorised water connections for construction work and other commercial purposes have been disconnected, she told reporters.
Appealing Delhi people not to use water from DJB's pipeline network for washing cars, roofs and balconies of houses and watering plants, the minister said, "People need to come together to tackle the water crisis." As of now, over 1,000 tankers of DJB are supplying water to areas such as unauthorised colonies and slums that have no access to the pipeline network. These tankers make eight to 10 trips to supply water which means only four to five MGD of water is being used, Atishi said.
"If tanker mafia is active and say 100-200 tankers are operated, it will be not more than 0.1-0.5 MGD of water used by them. Even if the tanker mafia is completely restrained, it will not solve the water crisis in Delhi as it is facing a shortfall of 50 MGD of water," she said.
Delhi Police began patrolling the Munak Canal area on Thursday to check the activities of the tanker mafia.
Atishi, however, said the tanker mafia needed to be checked, whether they were from Haryana or Delhi. She however said police in both places are controlled by BJP-led governments and accused the saffron party of doing politics over the matter.
The Delhi Police is controlled by the Union government.
She said the Delhi government, with an expenditure of Rs 500 crore prevented water transmission losses that was at 30 per cent. In the last nine years, 3,500 km of pipelines with leakages were replaced and over 60,000 km-long pipeline network was laid to supply water to unauthorised colonies and slum clusters in the city.
She said the government has also installed 3,285 bulk flow metres to monitor water entering the pipeline network and its supply across the city.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
