Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Friday said that the shortage of water in the city is solely the result of mismanagement of the Delhi Government.

The L-G alleged that for the past several days, the irresponsible attitude of the Delhi government has been witnessed regarding the water supply in the city, while women, children, old people and young men are seen risking their lives and running after tankers for a bucket of water.

Saxena, while expressing deep concern over the issue, said that no one would have imagined that such heart-wrenching scenes would be visible in the country’s capital but the government is blaming other states for its failures.

Saxena, taking a dig at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s promise of 24-hour water supply in Delhi, said it has so far proved to be an illusion.

Refuting claims by the Delhi government that neighboring states are not releasing Delhi’s share of water, Saxena said that he was told that Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are continuously giving their fixed quota of water to Delhi.

He claimed that despite the water supply from the neighboring states, the biggest reason for the severe water shortage in the city is that 54 per cent of the water being produced remains unaccounted for, and 40 per cent of water is wasted during supply, as a result of old and dilapidated pipelines.

The L-G further slammed the Delhi government saying that despite huge amounts of money spent in the last ten years, old pipelines could neither be repaired or replaced, nor were adequate new pipelines laid.

He alleged that the mismanagement is up to the extent that water is stolen and sold to the poor people by the tanker mafia.

Saxena claimed that he has been told that except Wazirabad, all the water treatment plants of the city are producing water more than their capacity.

The L-G further claimed that the reason behind Wazirabad plant not being able to function at its full capacity is because the reservoir of the barrage is almost filled with silt.

Saxena said that up till 2013, the reservoir was cleaned and desilted every year, but during the last 10 years, it was not cleaned even once and every year others were blamed for the lack of water.

The capacity of this reservoir, which used to be 250 million gallons, has reduced to only 16 million gallons, he claimed.

The L-G further hit out at the Delhi government saying that It has become its habit to blame others for its every failure.