The most abundant, renewable natural resource available is water, capable of removing its own contamination coming at various stages of its cycle. But urban population has been exploiting the fresh water in a faster rate than the rate at which water can get rejuvenated itself.

In a recent survey of 27 million plus Asian cities, Delhi was ranked as one of the worst performing metropolis in terms of hours of water availability per day. According to some estimates, over 13% of households in Delhi do not receive water every day.

Delhi receives 23000 lakh litres of water from the Yamuna, the Western Yamuna Canal , the Ganga and rainfall. 42% of the total water supply is from ground water. The chief source of water in Delhi is the river Yamuna on which a dam was constructed in Wazirabad to supply water to the entire city. A lesser amount of water is also arranged from ranney wells and bore wells.

Unfortunately, all the water supplied from various sources is able to meet only 45% of Delhi ’s total demand. There has been always a shortage in water supply, which has been amplified with speedy increase of population and radical transform in lifestyles.

Yamuna has been acting as a waste pipe for Delhi by draining out all the wastewater from the city. The area of Yamuna catchments in NCT of Delhi is 1,485 sq km. This area is responsible for 80% of its total pollution load in the river whereas this segment of the catchments constitutes only 2% of the entire catchments.

During the post independence era, especially in the last 30 years, due to rapid urbanization, economic and industrial development, Delhi , the capital city of India is facing the challenges of sanitation and environmental degradation of the River and now the stretch of Yamuna in Delhi is perhaps the most threatened riverine ecosystem in the world. The river gets more than 3000 million litres of waste water per day from all the 17 main drains which carry both industrial as well as domestic waste water.

Two thirds of the population in the city receives less than 37 litres (2-3 buckets) of water daily. The residents of J.J.clusters, resettlement colonies and unauthorized colonies fulfill their requirements with water from hand pumps, bore wells of DJB/Slum wing and a few from treated surface water supply. People living in resettlement colonies like Madanpur Khadar have their own hand pumps and JJCs like Tigri have private bore well to meet the need of water. This proves the paucity of water in Delhi and raises a question of potability of the water they are provided with.

water testing report

With the increasing complains related to quality of water supplied and cases of water borne diseases, Hazards Centre collaborated with other organizations of Sajha Manch has been conducting a study on the water quality of JJC and resettlement colonies in Delhi in three phases; pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon. Water quality testing was done for different parameters like- nitrate, fluoride, chloride, residual chlorine, total iron and faecal coliform in 11 different JJCs and resettlement colonies. The pre-monsoon study included 27 water samples from DJB boring, private boring, hand pump, surface water supply through pipe and tanker and the results of analysis revealed only one sample as potable. The second phase study incorporated 53 water samples, of which only 5 samples meet the standards for drinking water quality.