Just days after Haryana submitted in the Supreme Court that it would supply water to Delhi via Munak canal it has now emerged that the national Capital is unlikely to gain much in terms of water supply. The savings made by Haryana due to water supply through the concrete channel would remain with it.
The Engineer-in-Chief of the Irrigation Department, Vijay Jain, on Friday told The Hindu that Haryana is supplying more than Delhi’s share of 719 cusecs of water as per the 1996 agreement. Moreover, the supply of water through Munak canal has been started and this would result in significant savings by way of reduction in losses through seepage into the ground.
Some residents of Dwarka in Delhi had filed a PIL demanding that Munak canal be commissioned at the earliest as it would result in saving of water which could be supplied to the starved south west Delhi area. However, despite the canal getting commissioned, Delhi is not going to gain much despite spending over Rs. 400 crores on it.
Another senior State official said the supply of water through Munak canal was started on December 1 itself. However, he said, there has been no order on water sharing between Haryana and Delhi and the courts have held that this is an issue to be “sorted out elsewhere”. Apart from releasing 719 cusecs to Delhi, Haryana is required, as per a Supreme Court order, to fill up the reservoirs of Haiderpur and Wazirabad water treatment plants in the national Capital.
“Due to shift to the Munak canal there are certain savings but that would accrue only to Haryana and we would be sending a commensurate amount of less water to Delhi. As for Dwarka, the pipeline from Karawal Nagar (in East Delhi) to the sub-city has been stuck in a land acquisition problem. ”
