Thursday, July 28, 2011

Delhi gets water share after truce with Haryana (Times of India 20 July 2011)

NEW DELHI: The water-sharing dispute between Delhi and Haryana was resolved on Tuesday with Haryana agreeing to release an additional 610 cusecs of Yamuna water in Munak canal to cater to the needs of the capital.

While Haryana will give Delhi 610 cusecs water (610 cubic feet per second) or 17,273 litres per second at Munak canal, the city will provide Haryana Rs 50 crore as "upfront reimbursement" for the under-construction Munak channel. Haryana has demanded a total of Rs 150 crore as reimbursement. It will send the estimate of the remaining amount to Central Water Commission which will take a final call on the issue.

Both Delhi and Haryana agreed to the arrangement at a meeting of Group of Ministers held in the city. In January this year, the centre had stepped in to resolve the water-sharing dispute between Delhi and Haryana by forming a four-member Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by home minister P Chidambaram. Human resources development minister Kapil Sibal, law minister Salman Khurshid and water resources minister Pawan Kumar Bansal are part of the GoM.

The water that will be released by Haryana will be in addition to the 125 cusecs that Haryana is already providing to Delhi at Nangloi. The 610 cusecs of water was agreed upon by the two states as per a 1994 agreement.The carrier line channel will help Delhi save what is being lost due to leakages and seepage. It is expected to help in running the 20 million gallons daily (MGD) water treatment plants at Okhla and at Bawana and a 50 MGD water treatment plant at Dwarka.

The two chief ministers, Sheila Dikshit and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, attended the meetings as special invitees. The GoM looked into the water-sharing dispute arising out of the newly constructed carrier line channel between Munak in Haryana and Haiderpur in Delhi.

This channel made of concrete, is expected to save 80 million gallons of raw water everyday.

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