New Delhi, Mar 26 (PTI) Aiming to clean the Yamuna river in Delhi in the next two years and provide 24X7 water supply to all households by 2025, the Delhi government has doubled the outlay for water and sanitation to Rs 6,710 crore in the Budget 2022-23.
The allocation for water and sanitation is 104 per cent more than Rs 3,274 crore earmarked in 2021-22.
Presenting the budget in the Assembly, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said all the drains falling into the Yamuna will be checked and sewage treated either by taking it to STPs or it will be converted into clean water by in-situ treatment.
“All these plans are progressing at a rapid pace. And, in two years, the Yamuna in Delhi will be completely cleaned. It is the resolution of the Delhi government that not even a drop of dirty water should fall in the Yamuna from the side of the people of Delhi,” he said.
Earlier, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said the river will be cleaned by 2025.
Advancing the deadline for the cleaning of the Yamuna in Delhi, Water Minister Satyendar Jain had on Tuesday said the river will be completely cleaned by December 2023 and not 2025.
All the wastewater in Delhi will be tapped in the next six months and all areas will be linked to the sewer network in the next 15 months, he had said at a virtual session organised by Assocham.
“We will clean the Yamuna by December 2023 and not 2025. All the drains will be completely cleaned… I am confident. We will invite you all to take a dip in any stretch of the river in Delhi,” he had said.
Sisodia said that all the unauthorised colonies in the capital will be connected to the sewer network by the end of this year.
According to government data, sewer lines have been laid and commissioned in 706 of the 1,799 unauthorised colonies in the capital and the work is in progress in 448 others.
The 22-km stretch of the river between Wazirabad and Okhla, which is less than 2 per cent of its length of 1,370 km from Yamunotri to Allahabad, accounts for around 80 per cent of the pollution load in the river.
Untapped wastewater from unauthorised colonies and ‘jhuggi-jhopri’ clusters, and poor quality of treated wastewater discharged from STPs and common effluent treatment plants are the main reasons behind high levels of pollution in the river.
At least 29 per cent of the sewage generated in Delhi in the financial year 2021-22 fell into the Yamuna untreated.
Sisodia also said the availability of drinking water in Delhi has increased by 10 per cent — from 915 million gallons a day to 985 MGD.
“Better management of water coming to Delhi from outside, and better harvesting of rainwater will ensure round-the-clock water supply in the coming three years,” he said.
The deputy chief minister said the scheme of providing 20 kilolitres of drinking water a month free to the people of Delhi will continue this year as well.
On an average, 6.50 lakh consumers are availing the benefit of the scheme which was started in 2015. PTI GVS SMN SMN
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