MARCHING AHEAD TOWARDS WATER SUSTAINABILITY OF DELHI – A PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION BY TAPAS

The water supply level in Delhi has remained static for many years despite the fact that population levels are increasing all the time. This has led to situation of water stress with the yawning demand-supply gap being made up by resorting to groundwater extraction. The shallow fresh water strata of the ground water reserve have been nearly exhausted in the areas of acute resource stress. Total requirement of water for drinking, domestic, irrigational and industrial purposes is 3940 MLD (866 MGD). At present Delhi Jal Board is supplying about 630 MGD of water by treating the surface & ground water through the conventional treatment plants. Considering the 15% transmission losses, the projected water requirement for 2011 and 2021 would be about 4877 MLD (1072 MGD) and 6323 MLD (1389 MGD) respectively. At present, there is a gap of about 236 MGD in demand and supply of drinking water. This gap may increase and could reach to 247 MGD by 2011 and 564 MGD by 2021. The total availability of water, as estimated from all the sources, is 825 MGD, which is 60% of the projected water requirements of year 2021. The replenishable annual ground water recharge in NCT Delhi is 0.30 BCM, of which 50% is through rainfall and rest half through other sources. The annual gross draft for all uses is 0.48 BCM and the over-all stage of ground water development is 170%. Highest developments have been recorded in South and South West Delhi where the stage of ground water development is more than 200%. 

Latest Documents