Sonia urges govts to try and preserve water

New Delhi, Sep 18: Describing water as the very basis of development of a nation, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today urged various state governments in the country to make joint efforts with the public to peserve this precious resource.

''Water, along with power and roads, form the basis of development of a nation. Every drop of water is precius and I urge all the state governments as well as the Centre to raise awareness among the public of the need for water conservation,'' Ms Gandhi said after dedicating to the people of Delhi the 140 MGD Sonia Vihar Water Treatment Plan, set up at a cost of nearly Rs 4000 Crore, to meet Delhi's water shortage Describing the operationalisation of the plant, the first state-of-the-art water treatment plant in the country, as a significant milestone in the direction of fulfulling the dream of meeting water shortage in the capital city, Mrs Gandhi said,''I am sure that the water problems of a large part of Delhi will be solved with the operationalisation of the plant.'' An estimated 40 lakh people of Delhi stand to benefit from the additional water supply of 140 MGD from the Sonia Vihar plant.

The setting up of the plant will not only help in better water supply coverage and distribution for South and East Delhi but would also gradually result in improved supplies in other areas in the city through displacement.

Ms Gandhi said that the plant would also help in increase in the ground level situation in Delhi, which had gone down alarmingly in the last few years due to water shortage in the capital.

''It is a result of painstaking efforts by the Delhi Government and the DJB who have toiled day and night to prepare pipelines for bringing the water to people of Delhi in such a short time,'' she said while addressing a huge gathering, comprising of ministers in the Delhi cabinet, MLAs, Municipal councillors and members of the general public.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, Delhi chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said following the commissioning of the plant, a total of 140 MGD of additional water would be available to Delhi, of which 90 MGD would be available to South Delhi areas while an additional 40 MGD would be received by people of East Delhi.

''An additional feature of the plant is the minimum use of chemicals in the treatment with the result that the water that people receive would be clear. Further, as against a high percentage of leakages in the existing distribution networks, the leakages in the water distributed from the Sonia Vihar WTP would be just 1.5 per cent which, in turn, would considerably reduce maintenance cost of the plant,''Ms Dikshit said.

In the first phase, the DJB released around 65 MGD last month which will be followed with further releases in a controlled manner to make it a total of 140 MGD of additional supply to the city. The commissioning of the plant is likely to meet a large part of the power requirements of Delhi by augmenting the present water supply of 675 MGD by 140 MGD, to make it 815 MGD. According to estimated the current demand of water in Delhi 900 MGD.

Mrs Dikshit said with the population of Delhi increasing by five lakh every year, Delhi's water requirements had risen over the years.

''However, the commissioning of the Sonia Vihar Plant will take care of the water needs of Delhi till the year 2015. I am hopeful that in the coming years, the problem of water shortage would become a thing of the past,''she said.

At the same time, Mrs Dikshit urged people of Delhi to make efforts to conserve water.

''The people of Delhi must also make efforts to conserve water by judiciously utilising it. In the past few years, there has been a decrease in ground water level in Delhi, which is a matter of concern,'' she said, and in this regard, advocated the use of water harvesting technique.

Among the chief invitees on the occasion were Lt Governor of Delhi B L Joshi, Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, Union Minister for Power Sushilkumar Shinde, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken, AICC General Secretary Ashok Gehlot, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Chief Rambabu Sharma and Delhi Mayor Farhad Suri.

The Sonia Vihar WTP has been built on the basis of a design build-operate contract with the French company Degroment.

It is India's largest single stage WTP designed by Degroment using state-of-the-art technology, suiting Indian conditions.

Addressing reporters here, the CEO of Degroment Thierry Mallet said,''the state-of-the-art plant is flexible using low chemicals and low power consumption ensuring a robust flow. The plant uses the Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technology which will prevent water theft and wastage through leakage as against the existing plants in India which are manually operated and require a lot of manpower.''

UNI