Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit directed the Delhi Jal Board on Monday to initiate work on a project that was sanctioned to extract water through non-invasive technology from the Yamuna floodplains but has been hanging fire.
The Chief Minister’s direction came after a group of students from Delhi University met her, requesting to sanction the project, which is also the subject of their thesis.
“In 2009, on the directions of the Prime Minister’s Office, a committee headed by the chairman of the Central Water Commission was constituted to look into feasibility and implementation of this project. A study done by WAPCOS on behalf of the DJB confirmed and established the feasibility of the project. However, it has been almost a year and the project has not been put in an implementation stage. In 2011, students of the Delhi University Geology Department took up a study on this scheme as subject of their Masters thesis,” said Diwan Singh of the non-government organisation Natural Heritage First, who is also part of the programme.
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The scheme proposes to extract over 60 MGD of water from the floodplains of Palla through non-invasive technique. A team including Dr. S.V.N. Rao from WAPCOS, Dr. Shashank Shekhar from Delhi University and Prof. Vikram Soni from Jamia Milia University had been working on the research and development of the project. “Not only is the delay depriving the city of additional water, it has also delaying the thesis [of the students] beyond the stipulated time,” said Mr. Singh.