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Drunk on water

  • 30/03/1994

Drunk on water TAKE just a tourist's passing measure of the vast leafy expanse that gives New Delhi its crowing distinction as one of the greenest capitals in the world and you'll know exactly where a full 10th of the Capital's water sinks. The 400,000 residents of the tiny 5 per cent area of Delhi that the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) services are perhaps the most spoilt water consumers in the country.

In the main, Delhi's courtesies to embassies and the President's Estate are responsible for a situation that is difficult to reverse. Each of the 207 ha that the 50-odd embassies in the NDMC area of Chanakyapuri occupy demands 45 kilolitres per day. The horticultural cosmetics that make the President's estate the most verdant residential area in the city are supported by close to 2.5 million litres daily (mld). And the host of central government offices, hospitals, commercial complexes and fivestar hotels only deepen the vortex.

The average domestic consumption in the area is around 243 litres per capita daily (Ipcd) 362 in the bungalows and type VII houses - and is expected to rise to around 263 by the year 2001. A sample survey in the city's poshest colonies of Jor Bagh, Golf Links, Ashok Road, Laxmibai Nagar and Chanakyapuri found that, contrary to most of the city, in Delhi (225 litres) they had few complaints. These were the areas to which Delhi's chief minister, Madan Lal Khurana, had threatened to nip supply if Haryana actually went ahead and shut its flow to Delhi.

The massive private houses in jor Bagh had per capita consumption per day varying between 141 litres and 750 litres. In the impeccably manicured MP and minister's houses on Ashok Road, the per capita consumption per day fluctuated wildly between 86 litres and 786 litres.

Although the NDMC has adopted the figure of 225 Ipcd as the city waterload, it takes into account variations of up to 200 Ipcd in local demand for water planning at zonal levels: the residents of the elite housing categories 11 and III, plus those living in bungalows and flats - 36 per cent of the city's population - consume more water through water-coolers and bathtubs.

The domestic water consumed shot up from 68 mld in 1985 to 87 mld in 1991 and may touch 116 mId by 2001. The per capita consumption for the three years also shows a steady climb. Luckily for it, the NDMC area doesn't have any industries, and non-domestic demand is limited to commercial complexes, hospitals, hotels, government and private offices, community facilities like railway stations, schools, colleges, public utilities and services, which consume 45 kI per day/ha. But high office concentration areas like Indraprastha Estate suck away 72 kI per day/ha and high density areas like Connaught Place 85 kI per day/ha.

The NDMC area's floating population, which embraces about 12,000 Indian and non-Indian tourists (including 25 people in each MP's quarters at any given time), uses up about 17.62 mId (1,400 Ipcd). The water demand for the four major hospitals - the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Lady Hardinge Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital - comes to about 1.3 kI per day per bed.

Computing all these factors, the non-domestic demand was taken to be 74.2 mld in 1991, rising to 74.6 mId in 2001, and the domestic demand at 114.8 mId rising to 150.4 mId. The shortfall between NDMC's domestic supply and demand at the moment is a drastic 70 m1d, expected to rise by another 25 mld by 2001.

The NDMC, powerbacked hysterically by the VIPs in its precincts, receives most of its water from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and augmen1s it with water from 17 distribution stations in its supply system connected directly to ground reservoirs. The 84 tubewells drilled by the NDMC to add 20 mId to the supply in summer are already inconsistent and steadily diminishing. The tubewells wheeze 14 hours a day, longer in Delhi's parched summers. But without more raw water bailing it out of a dry patch threatening to become desert, the NDMC has no choice but to continue with its morose dribble of about 8-10 hours a day.

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