Amid deadly heatwave, Delhi government increases water supply to prevent scarcity

Amid a deadly heatwave building up in various parts of the country, the Delhi government on Thursday said it will supply around 1,000 million gallons of drinking water every day during the summer season as against 935 MGD earlier to meet the rising demand. Sharing its Summer Action Plan, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) said a total of 1,198 water tankers will be deployed across the city during the peak summer season (April-July) to prevent water scarcity.

Large swathes of India are reeling under a punishing heatwave, with temperatures nearing the 45-degree mark at several places in the national capital. The heatwave is predicted to turn deadlier in the coming days. "To meet the water requirement of the city residents, especially considering the rising heat this year, the Delhi government is targeting to supply about 1,000 MGD of potable water during the summer of 2022 by optimising all the resources," a statement quoted Water Minister Satyendar Jain as saying.

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Earlier, the DJB supplied 935 MGD of drinking water to the city residents on an average. "The system has been made efficient and robust so that there is no water scarcity in the summer season. The water minister is personally monitoring the situation," the statement said. The Delhi government is also keeping a close watch on the level of ammonia in the raw water released from Haryana so that it does not impede the water supply in the national capital. All the jhuggi-jhopri clusters in the city avail the facility of public hydrants and water tankers. Additional water tankers will be provided if there is scarcity of water, Jain said.

Depending on the requirement during peak summer, the trips of the tankers will be optimised to supplement the demand in the water-deficient areas and regions lacking piped water supply. The DJB has equipped the tankers with GPS systems to track their movement. It will bring in more transparency and improve the service quality, Jain said. The board has also replaced old pipelines and fixed leakages to minimise water loss and contamination.

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Area-wise timings for water supply will be made available on the DJB website. The emergency control rooms have been provided with adequate staff, communication facilities and better equipment for grievance redressal and monitoring, the DJB said. The mercury at the Safdarjung observatory -- Delhi's base station -- is expected to breach the 43-degree mark on Thursday and touch 44 degrees Celsius by Friday, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The maximum temperature may even leap to 46 degrees Celsius in parts of Delhi, an IMD official said. Delhi falls in the Core Heatwave Zone (CHZ), comprising the most heatwave-prone areas of the country, along with Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

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