Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant Has ‘Miserable Hygiene’: Delhi LG Writes To Kejriwal

Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena said that the Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant has “miserable hygiene and sanitary conditions", and the plant needs urgent intervention by the government.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena.

In a letter written to New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena on Saturday said the Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant has “miserable hygiene and sanitary conditions", reported PTI. The plant supplies drinking water to most parts of the national capital.

Reacting to the letter, Delhi Water Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that the L-G was “playing dirty politics over the sensitive issue of water supply”, the PTI report stated. He further said supply of water from the Yamuna river to the national capital was being blocked by illegal sand mining in Haryana.

The LG’s letter read, “It is with a sense of deep distress that I seek your urgent intervention into the state of affairs prevalent at the Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant (WTP) and the feeder pond area at Wazirabad Barrage, that feeds the Wazirabad and Chandrawal WTPs."

Mismanagement Of Water Treatment Plant

Saxena also said that Delhi Jal Board was responsible for "gross inaction" in cleaning and desilting the reservoir behind the Wazirabad barrage, which supplies water to the Wazirabad and Chandrawal water treatment plants.

He said that Delhi suffered a loss of over nine lakh million gallons of water because the pond was not desilted and cleaned properly, reported PTI.

Saxena said he visited the area on March 9 and saw "grave dereliction and criminal neglect" of the WTP and the pond region.

He further said all of this is resulting in a "totally avoidable water shortage" in the national capital.

His letter alleged that the Wazirabad Water Treatment Plant was affected by rusted and trash-ridden reservoirs, corroded pipelines, silt-covered equipment and power-guzzling water pumps.

In his letter to the CM, Saxena said, “Despite a desilting contract being in place since 2013, no de-siltation took place resulting in the depth of the pond reducing from 4.26 metres to a mere 0.42 metres during the last eight years,” reported PTI.
He, however, said that the desilting work was stopped because of a stay order from the National Green Tribunal in September 2014. That was started again after the stay was lifted in 2015.

He remarked, as quoted by PTI, “It is worth underlining here that while in about nine months between 2013 and 2014, five lakh cubic metres of silt was removed, after lifting of the stay by hon'ble NGT, in the period from 2015 to 2018, just 1.1 cubic metres of silt was removed.”

Saxena's letter added: "Even thereafter, despite no work happening, it took the DJB about four years to terminate the contract as late as February 2022.”

'Pond’s Water Holding Capacity Reduced'

Meanwhile, he said the pond kept getting silted and it shrunk further.

He was further quoted as saying by PTI, “In addition to this, natural siltation also kept taking place and progressively led to further shrinking of the pond, thereby proportionately reducing Delhi's capacity to hold and store water – so essential to maintaining its supply, especially during time susceptible to the shortage."

He said that close to 10 lakh cubic metres of silt is again clogging the pond area which is decreasing the water holding capacity.

Saxena said, “A back-of-the-envelope calculation would bring out that during the last 10 years, owing to the siltation of the pond area, Delhi, a territory almost exclusively dependent upon other states for its water needs, let nearly 9,12,500 million gallons of water literally flow down the river.”

Saxena’s letter further said, "Had the pond storage area been functional to its full capacity, this water would have come to the use of the people of Delhi. One is forced to wonder here as to what level of mismanagement was done on the part of DJB to effect such acute wastage,” reported PTI.

According to Saxena’s letter, the pond had the capacity to hold about 250 million gallons of water earlier, which has now been decreased by close to 94 percent. He said that this happened due to siltation. At present, the pond can store only about 16 million gallons of water.

The LG’s letter said, “Frequent water shortage in the city, including the one before Holi, on account of Wazirabad and Chandrawal water treatment plants not being fully operational, is solely due to this reason and not due to the Haryana Excuses that AAP makes to fool the people.”

Saxena's Advice To Clean The Pond

Through his letter to Arvind Kejriwal, Saxena has advised conducting immediate desilting and cleaning of the pond area and to upgrade the water treatment plant.

He said, “It would also be essential that strict action is initiated against officials responsible for this gross dereliction of duty and criminal misconduct.”

“It is also recommended that visits aimed at supervision and monitoring be undertaken on a regular basis by authorities to identify shortcomings and rectify the same in a concurrent manner,” said Saxena .

The LG Is Playing Politics

Water Minister and Delhi Jal Board Chairman Saurabh Bharadwaj reacted strongly to the accusations by the LG.

Bharadwaj asked the LG to take cognisance of illegal sand mining in Haryana that was allegedly blocking the supply of water to the national capital.

The minister said the illegal sand mining in Haryana has been blocking the supply of Yamuna river's water towards the national capital.

He also alleged that LG was playing politics. Bharadwaj said, "The people of Delhi feel extremely sad that the Hon'ble LG is playing dirty politics over the sensitive issue of water supply in Delhi. Either he is unaware of the facts or he is deliberately doing cheap politics,” reported PTI.