The Delhi BJP on Monday said that it will submit a letter to the Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena urging to order a probe into all the tender projects undertaken by the Delhi Jal Board and Irrigation Department in the past 9 years.

Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva has alleged that due to the criminal negligence of the Delhi government, extensive theft and wastage of water is taking place in the national capital, leading to a severe shortage of water for Delhi’s consumers, especially the poor.

Advertisement

He pointed that as a result of the shortage, a 35-year-old woman was killed in a quarrel over water filling in the Farsh Bazaar area of Shahdara on Friday, April 12.

Sachdeva further claimed that it was regrettable to see Delhi’s Water Minister Atishi indulging in false and baseless political rhetoric instead of expressing sympathy for the brutal murder of a woman or compensating the affected family.

He alleged that Atishi’s attempt to blame officials for not allocating funds is completely misleading, further adding that during the past 9 years, DJB has been allocated Rs 29,172 crores for water treatment alone, and questioned as to where did that money go since water availability has not increased in Delhi, and demanded that Delhi CM and minister Atishi should explain where the money went.

Sachdeva further alleged that in the past 9 years, the water agency has become a breeding ground of AAP’s corruption, and claimed that the Kejriwal government has been making excuses to hide its shortcomings, and added that, so far no work has been done to increase the availability of drinking water in the city.

Elaborating on the issue, Sachdeva further claimed that despite Delhi’s population registering an increase by more than 90 lakh in the last decade, it was due to the negligence and incompetence of the Arvind Kejriwal government, there has been only a marginal increase of 5 MGD in water availability.

Delhi BJP chief further claimed that in the year 1998, the DJB produced 640 MGD and in 2013 it produced 935 MGD of water, but after 2014 when AAP came to power, the water availability only increased by 5 MGD.

He also alleged that it was a result of Delhi government’s negligence, that during the last decade, water theft and wastage in Delhi Jal Board have reached up to 74 percent in the current times, and further added that the water minister must tell what her government has done to stop this theft and wastage.

Speaking on the ground water extraction, he alleged that Kejriwal government is increasing to source groundwater through bore wells, and claimed that the same policy which was adopted in Chennai, had led to a severe groundwater shortage in the southern Indian metropolitan city.

He further accused the Delhi government of not paying attention to the city’s natural rainwater wells, and claimed that at present five rainwater wells in Delhi are in a bad condition, and if they were functioning, they could have provided water to 4500 tankers.