Delhi HC rebukes DMRC for not providing free drinking water facility

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has asked the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) that how DMRC can justify not to providing free drinking water to the passengers if metro services in Kochi, Jaipur, Lucknow and other cities are making it available.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice VK Rao asked the DMRC on this issue to ‘explain how DMRC will implement it. Whether free drinking water can be provided at a particular place within the station, where all the passengers have access? ‘The court has fixed the date for the next hearing on October 12. The court sought this information when the DMRC said in an affidavit that the person who felt the urgent need of water at the stations where there is no water ATM can contact the officials.

Advocate Kush Sharma on behalf of petitioner Kush Kalra told the court that metro services in other cities give passenger free drinking water but DMRC does not do this though being advisor in all those projects.

DMRC told the court that corporation provides information on metro stations that drinking water is available only in the emergency situation. The Metro also said that it has installed water ATMs at its stations where water is provided for two rupees per glass. He also said that the passengers are free to take their drinking water. DMRC had earlier told the High Court that a very small fee is charged for drinking water and toilets at the stations so that the abuse of these facilities can be stopped.

The court was hearing Kalra’s appeal against the order of a single judge. The single judge had said that the passengers traveling in the metro have no right to get free drinking water.

The court had earlier this year pulled up the DMRC for not providing free drinking water or toilet facilities to commuters inside the stations, asking whether it had lost “a sense of human problems”.