With the water supply crisis worsening in the city, police officials inspected the Jal Board pipelines in the Yamuna Khadar area of northeast Delhi on Sunday and reported no leakage.
After inspecting the pipeline, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Lokendra Sirohi stated, “There is no leakage here. If there is any leakage, we will inform the Jal Board and our control room.”
This inspection followed a letter from Delhi Minister Atishi to Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, urging the deployment of police personnel to protect major pipelines in the capital. Atishi’s letter read, “I am writing to request deployment of police personnel to patrol and protect our major pipelines for the next 15 days to stop miscreants or people with ulterior motives from tampering with water pipelines which have now become Delhi’s lifelines. At this juncture, any foul play and sabotage will worsen the already difficult water shortage being faced by the people of Delhi.”
The letter also mentioned, “Delhi Jal Board has patrolling teams for our main water distribution network that carries raw water to the Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) and then from our WTPs to our main underground reservoirs in different parts of the city. In addition, we have deployed teams under the supervision of ADMs to support in this work.”
Delhi Water Minister Atishi said that the ground patrolling team discovered damaged water supply pipelines in some areas. “Yesterday, our ground patrolling team reported a major leakage in our South Delhi Rising Mains, the main water pipeline that carries water from Sonia Vihar WTP to South Delhi. This was near the DTL substation in Garhi Medhu. Our patrolling team found that several large 375 mm bolts and one 12-inch bolt had been cut from the pipeline, causing the leakage. The fact that several large bolts had been cut seems to indicate foul play and sabotage,” she wrote in a letter.
Atishi further mentioned that the maintenance team worked for six hours to repair the leakage problem, exacerbating the water crisis in South Delhi. “Our maintenance team worked for six hours continuously and repaired the leakage, but this meant that we had to stop pumping water for 6 hours and 20 MGD of water was not pumped during this time. As a consequence, a further 25 percent of water shortage will be experienced in South Delhi,” the letter to the Delhi Police Commissioner read.
Atishi also requested the deployment of police personnel to protect the major pipelines for the next 15 days. “I am writing to request the deployment of police personnel to patrol and protect our major pipelines for the next 15 days. This would be very important for putting a stop to miscreants or people with ulterior motives from tampering with our water pipelines, which have now become Delhi’s lifelines. At this juncture, any foul play and sabotage will worsen the already difficult water shortage being faced by the people of Delhi,” she added.
Meanwhile, as Delhi’s water woes escalated amid the prevailing intense heatwave, AAP MLAs accused Union Jal Shakti Minister CR Patil of not intervening in the matter, while the BJP held a ‘matka-phod’ protest against the Arvind Kejriwal government to highlight the water crisis in Delhi.
MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday reached the residence of Union Jal Shakti Minister CR Patil at BD Marg, seeking his intervention in the issue of water shortage. However, the MLAs were not able to meet CR Patil as he was ‘not available’ at his residence.
AAP MLA Rakhi Birla, speaking on the issue, said, “It is unfortunate that we gave a letter to Minister CR Patil yesterday and today our delegation visited his residence to meet him but we are getting the information that he is not at his residence. We want to request that the minister pay attention to the issue of water shortages in Delhi.”
Another AAP MLA, Rajendra Pal Gautam, stated, “We have been informed that Minister CR Patil is not at his residence. He is aware that there is a water shortage in Delhi, and he should coordinate with the Delhi government in such a situation to solve this issue. We went to the court and wrote to the Union government to intervene in this matter.”
