Jal Board to get 20-MGD Bawana plant running before Games in October

A day after it resumed normal water supply from the Tehri Dam through the Upper Ganga Canal, which was blocked by protesters of the Jat community at Muradnagar on Sunday, the city’s water utility has sought the Centre’s intervention to secure its important installations.

Moreover, to avoid any such incidents in future that cause an unprecedented water crisis in an already parched city, the Delhi Jal Board also hopes to begin operating before the Commonwealth Games its 20-MGD (million gallons a day) water treatment plant (WTP) in Bawana.

The plant, which was commissioned way back in 2000 and abandoned since for want of water, is undergoing repairs right now, as the Haryana government has agreed to give additional water after intervention by the Centre. While the disputed Munak Channel — which was to give the city an additional 80 MGD water — is near completion with just 200 metres of the project left, the Haryana government is to give a revised estimate of the increased costs to Delhi government soon.

The purpose of the Munak Canal is to cut the wastage through seepage of water supplied to Delhi by Haryana through the Western Yamuna Canal. The water thus received was expected to help in running the 20-MGD Okhla WTP, the 20-MGD Bawana WTP and the 50-MGD WTP at Dwarka.

The 102-km-long Munak canal project is being built by the government of Haryana between Munak on the border of Haryana and Haiderpur in Delhi. Even as the Delhi government has borne the entire project cost of Rs 550 crore, Haryana had made clear it won’t give any additional water to Delhi beyond its mandate to maintain a level of 674.5 feet at the Wazirabad pond as per a Supreme Court ruling. The Delhi government then asked Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar to intervene in the matter. “The PMO has given its approval, and Haryana has agreed to give 20 MGD of water, which would help in running the Bawana WTP,” a senior DJB official said.

“Work on the 20-MGD Bawana WTP is on, to make it operational before the Games,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi confirmed to Newsline. But this will be no easy task, as abandoned for over a decade, transformers at the plant have been stolen, its lines have oxidised and the iron machinery has rusted.