Delhi BJP protest at DJB headquarters over ‘shortage’ of drinking water

PTI, Jun 24, 2023, 4:38 PM IST

The Delhi BJP, led by its chief Virendra Sachdeva, held a protest at the Jal Board headquarters on Saturday over a ”shortage” of drinking water in the city.

Many of them held placards with messages in Hindi demanding ”clean water or resignation” as they protested at the ‘Varunalaya’, the headquarters of the Delhi Jal Board.

Various other senior BJP leaders such as Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Kuljeet Singh Chahal also joined in the stir.

”Today, at the Delhi Jal Board headquarters, a protest was held against the Kejriwal government regarding the shortage of drinking water in Delhi,” Sachdeva tweeted with pictures from the protest site.

Delhi’s water situation has become ”so bad that even in the posh Civil Line area where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lives, taps are dry and the water that comes is not potable,” he alleged in his tweet in Hindi.

”Shame on such a Chief Minister who builds a Sheeshmahal for himself but is not even able to provide clean water to the people of Delhi. In the same way, we will continue to fight for the interests of the people and will continue to expose the incompetent and corrupt Kejriwal government. #WaterCrisisInDelhi,” the Delhi BJP president wrote on Twitter.

Chief Minister Kejriwal recently had asked DJB officials to prepare a detailed action plan to resolve the issue of water contamination in parts of the capital.

On June 14, the chief minister had said that Delhi’s water crisis will be resolved within the next two-three years with the government taking steps to enhance the water supply capacity by up to 300 million gallons a day (MGD).

According to official estimates, around two crore residents of the capital need approximately 1,300 MGD of water for drinking and daily needs. But the Delhi Jal Board can supply only around 1,000 MGD, leaving many areas grappling with a shortage.

Kejriwal had said the DJB’s water supply capacity has increased from 850 MGD in 2015 to 1,000 MGD now and that he has set an ambitious target to further enhance it to a range of 1,200-1,300 MGD within two to three years.