Water shortage on Day 1 of New Year

NEW DELHI: Delhiites faced water shortage on the first day of the New Year as a spike in pollutants as well as rising ammonia levels in Yamuna have caused eight Delhi Jal Board (DJB) water treatment plants (WTPs) to shut down.

According to DBJ officials, while some of the plants might get restored by Tuesday evening, full restoration will be possible only by Wednesday.

Due to pollution in Yamuna, the pumping of water from Wazirabad, Chandrawal, Haiderpur-1, Haiderpur-2, Okhla WTP, Dwarka, Bawana, and Nangloi was affected.

The raw water of Yamuna was extremely contaminated on Saturday evening as ammonia levels, which should be nil ideally, reached above 3.5 ppm, which cannot be treated using chlorine.

“We can only treat 0.5 parts per million ppm of ammonia content. The contamination took place due to inflow of untreated industrial waste in Yamuna from the Panipat dye drain.

The areas where water supply was disrupted included North Delhi, Central Delhi, parts of South Delhi, Delhi Cantonment areas, and New Delhi Municipal Council areas.

This is the second time since October 2017 that high levels of ammonia from Haryana have disrupted water supply in the capital. In the same month, water supply in East and South Delhi was affected for two days as Bhagirathi and Sonia Vihar treatment plants were closed due to high levels of ammonia. The Board drew water from the Haiderpur canal due to which Bawana and Haiderpur plants, which also were impacted.

On Sunday, the Delhi chief secretary had convened a meeting with the Haryana irrigation department in this regard.

The Board also advised residents to store enough water in advance and said they only need to dial the DJB helpline for water tankers.