Delhi civic bodies to use treated water for watering parks

NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) appointed Yamuna pollution monitoring committee directed the civic bodies of Delhi to maintain its public parks, which fall within five kilometers of a sewage treatment plant (STP) with treated water rather than the increasingly scarce groundwater. NGT also asked the civic bodies to submit an action plan on how they will achieve it.

Similar instructions would be issued to other government wings are identified as bulk users of groundwater such as the Indian Railways, Delhi Metro Railway Corporation (DMRC), Public Works Department (PWD) and transport department.

The Geospatial Delhi Limited (GSDL) and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) have been asked by the committee to map all the STPs and parks for this purpose.

Out of 460 million gallons per day (MGD) of treated water produced by the DJB at least 265 MGD must to be released into the Yamuna as Haryana’s share. The quantity of water remaining is available for irrigation, horticulture, recharging water bodies and more. At present most public parks in the capital which are maintained by the civic bodies and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) use bore wells for horticulture.

Rajesh Taneja, Director, Horticulture Department, East Municipal Corporation of Delhi (East MCD) said that we use water tankers to fetch treated water from three STPs to water the parks. “We want to eliminate the use of tankers completely and build a pipeline network to our roughly 2000 parks. For this, our engineering department has drafted a plan worth Rs 102 crore and seeking money under the Urban Development Funds (UDF),” he added.