New Delhi, Jul 14 (PTI) The Delhi government has started work on a new water management project aimed at upgrading the city’s ageing infrastructure, increasing water production, and ensuring equitable distribution across the city, Water Minister Parvesh Verma said on Monday.
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has been instructed to review studies conducted over the past 10 to 15 years on water supply, transportation, and management.
“For a long-term water and sewer management plan, we are studying previous DJB reports and preparing a new, comprehensive master plan for the future. These insights will be used to develop a long-term water master plan to address existing shortcomings and prepare for future needs,” Verma said.
Currently, the city’s average water production ranges between 900–1,000 million gallons per day (MGD). However, the average requirement is around 1,200 MGD, with demand increasing during the summer season.
Delhi is a largely urbanised city with a huge and growing concentration of population, which needs to be serviced with water supply and sewage treatment. The last Delhi Water Policy was finalised nearly nine years ago in 2016, which detailed a future action plan.
“Besides increasing the water supply, we are also studying ways to reduce the losses during transmission. We will appoint consultants for this project soon,” Verma added.
Earlier in April, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta held a high-level meeting with DJB officials on several issues pertaining to the water supply and sewage management system of Delhi and said that pipelines would be replaced in a phased manner.
“The population of the city has increased in the last 30 years, but the sewage management system and water supply infrastructure have not been replaced. The existing infrastructure has not been able to keep pace with the growth. We will take up replacement in a phased manner,” the chief minister had said at the time.
The Delhi government has also announced that by 2027, all unauthorised colonies will have sewer connections. The DJB had already floated a tender last year for hiring consultants to prepare the sewerage master plan of Delhi, which would include identifying shortcomings in the existing sewerage infrastructure.
According to the government, sewer lines have been successfully laid in 1,226 unauthorised colonies in Delhi so far, while work is in progress in 154 unauthorised colonies. PTI SSM HIG
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