NEW DELHI: With reports of several unauthorized constructions and occupation of the Yamuna riverbed pouring in, Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC) has decided to undertake an inspection of the riverbed on Wednesday.
K T Ravindran, chairman, DUAC, told TOI that members would go around to see what new constructions had sprouted up on the riverbed and whether they had the required clearances from the commission. ''There are many things that are happening on the riverbed right now and we do not have a clear picture of things as they stand. A lot has been reported in papers while there are some things that we have seen while driving past. While there is nothing specific that we are looking at, members will go across and identify the structures that have come up and whether they have done so legally. Let us first see what is going on and then we will take a call on possible action if necessary,'' he said.
Sources meanwhile said that the commission was prompted to undertake the visit specially after reports came in that Delhi Transport Commission was unwilling to vacate the Millennium bus depot that had been given to it specifically for the duration of the Commonwealth Games. ''The LG's office had made it very clear that the bus depot was to have been a temporary structure and was to have been vacated by DTC within a week or so after the Games got over. However, so far DTC has not made any effort to move out and are in fact claiming it to be one of their biggest depots,'' said Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan.
Sources also added that under scrutiny would be the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's living quarters that are coming up next to the Akshardham Metro station. ''A lot of work that was undertaken in the garb of Games-related projects came up without any clearances, specially from DUAC. The government needs to take a call on what it will allow on the riverbed and accordingly grant it a protected status,'' said an environmentalist.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Approach to a new national water policy (Hindu 29 October 2010)
In place of the current slogan of Integrated Water Resource Management, we should look at Responsible, Harmonious, Just
and Wise Use of Water.
The Union Ministry of Water Resources has undertaken a review and revision of the National Water Policy (NWP) 2002. The present article is intended as a contribution to that process. It will not offer a detailed critique of the Ministry's discussion paper, but will outline an approach for its consideration.
Need for radical overhaul
Ideally, a review at this stage should take climate change into account, but while we know that climate change may mean increased precipitation in some areas, increased drought in some others, and increased variability of precipitation, we do not yet know in detail precisely what will happen, when and where. Studies on these matters are still going on. A policy response will have to wait for some reasonably definitive findings on them.
However, an overhaul of the NWP is necessary even without reference to the issue of climate change. The reason for saying so is that there has been a gross mismanagement of water, as evidenced by the following selective list:
• intermittent, unreliable, unsafe and inequitable water supply in urban areas;
• rivers turned into sewers or poison, and aquifers contaminated;
• intractable water-related conflicts between uses, sectors, areas, States;
• major and medium irrigation systems in disarray, rendering poor and unreliable service, and characterised by inequities of various kinds;
• alarming depletion of aquifers in many parts of the country;
• inefficiency and waste in every kind of water-use;
• the environmental/ecological impacts of big water-resource projects, poor EIAs, the displacement of people by such projects and the general failure to resettle and rehabilitate project-affected persons; and so on.
The need for a radical reform of water policy is evident.
Not revision but new start
If so, the kind of transformation that is needed will not be achieved by incremental changes in the NWP 2002. If we start from NWP 2002, our thinking will quickly fall into well-worn grooves, and getting out of them will be difficult. It is necessary to put aside the NWP 2002, and start from scratch.
Reversals of past approaches
Such an exercise will involve many reversals of past approaches. For instance, reversing the usual approach of projecting a future demand and bringing about a supply-side response to meet that demand, we must start from the fact that the availability of fresh water in nature is finite, and learn to manage our water needs within that availability. This will mean a stringent restraint on the growth of ‘demand' for water (other than basic needs) which will be difficult and will involve painful adjustments; but the effort is inescapable.
A second reversal will have to be on the supply side. Primacy will have to shift from large, centralised, capital-intensive ‘water resource development' (WRD) projects with big dams and reservoirs and canal systems, to small, decentralised, local, community-led, water-harvesting and watershed-development programmes, with the big projects being regarded as projects of the last resort; and the exploitation of groundwater will have to be severely restrained in the interest of resource-conservation as well as equity.
A third reversal will have to be in relation to rivers, from massive interventions in flows and maximal abstraction of waters to letting the rivers flow and keeping interventions to the minimum. Instead of killing rivers and then trying to revive them, we must learn to keep rivers alive, flowing and healthy. A fourth reversal will have to be in the relative roles of the state and the community (from ‘eminent domain' or sovereign powers of the state to the state as trustee holding natural resources in public trust for the community). There may have to be other reversals. The intention is not to discuss these matters in detail but to indicate the kind of changes that will be needed.
Multiple perspectives
The changes cannot be piecemeal and fragmented. They need to be integral parts of a holistic vision. One difficulty in this regard is the multiplicity of perspectives on water that need to be taken into account. For instance, consider the following:
• the rights perspective, focussing on the fundamental or human right to water, traditional rights of access of communities (tribal or other) to rivers, lakes, forests, and other sources of sustenance and livelihoods, and so on;
• the social justice/ equity perspective, concerned with issues of inequity in urban and rural water and sanitation services, injustices to the poor and to the Scheduled Castes or Tribes, forced displacement by major projects and deficiencies or failures in resettlement /rehabilitation, inequities in access to irrigation water in the command areas of projects, etc;
• the women's perspective stressing the burden on women of fetching water from long distances as well as managing water in the home, with no voice in water-planning or water-management institutions;
• the community perspective urging the right relationship between state and civil society, the empowerment of people vis-à-vis the state (or the corporates), the community management of common pool resources, mobilisation of people for local water augmentation and management, social control of water use and sanctions against misuse, voice in water policy formulation and water management, etc;
• the state perspective, concerned with legislation, policy formulation, planning, administration, ‘governance' at all three levels, ensuring/enforcing rights, providing or facilitating or regulating water supply and sanitation services, preventing or resolving or adjudicating inter-state/inter-sector/inter-use/inter-area water disputes, prescribing and enforcing quality standards, managing water relations with other countries, ensuring compliance with international law, and so on;
• the engineering perspective (which needs no explanation);
• the water quality perspective concerned with the enforcement of water quality standards, and the prevention and control of pollution and contamination of water;
• the citizen/ water-user perspectives tending to assert requirements for various uses (drinking, domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural, etc) quite strongly, but showing poor recognition of the obligations of economical and efficient use, avoidance of waste and conflict, conservation of the resource, and protection of the environment;
• the economic perspective that sees water as economic good subject to market forces, and argues for water markets, the full economic pricing of water, the privatisation of water services, private sector participation in water resource projects, etc;
• the ‘growth' perspective focussing on economic growth at a certain desired rate, and tending to be impatient with social, community, rights, equity, environmental or other perspectives;
• the business perspective, concerned with a supply response to demand, the objective being profits, professing ‘corporate social responsibility' but tending to subordinate it to the imperative of profits;
• the legal perspective, which is not really a separate perspective, as legal issues arise in all perspectives; but specifically concerned among other things with the constitutional division of legislative powers, Centre-State and inter-State relations on water, inter-State river-water disputes, riparian law, international water law, questions of ownership and/or control of water, etc. (all these being not merely legal but also socio-political questions); and
• the environmental/ecological perspective, concerned with the protection of the environmental/ecological system from the impacts of ‘developmental' activity, and the prescription/monitoring of remedial measures.
The foregoing enumeration of perspectives will immediately show that a multiplicity of disciplines is involved. The formulation of a national water policy must necessarily be an inter-disciplinary exercise.
Overarching perspective
If these perspectives are to be integrated and harmonised into a coherent whole, some will have to be regarded as the overarching, governing perspectives, and all others subsumed under them. In the author's view, the ecological and social justice perspectives will have to be the overarching perspectives, and all other perspectives subordinated to them. In particular, engineering and economics, which have so far been the dominant disciplines, must be firmly kept under check by ecology and by the idea of social justice.
Dharma perspective
Keeping in mind Gandhiji's firm conviction that rights flow from responsibilities, we can consider combining the ecological and social justice perspectives into a moral responsibility perspective or, in other words, an ethical or dharma perspective. Let us think in terms of our responsibility or dharma in relation to:
• the poor, deprived, disadvantaged, or disempowered;
• other humans sharing the resource with us, including those in our State or other States, our country or other countries, our generation or future generations;
• other species or forms of life;
• rivers, lakes, aquifers, forests, nature in general, Planet Earth itself.
That is the overarching perspective that this writer would like to propose. In place of the current slogan of Integrated Water Resource Management or IWRM about which he has strong reservations, he would like to offer the alternative formulation of Responsible, Harmonious, Just and Wise Use of Water.
Alas, RHJWUW is not a catchy term like IWRM. The latter term has come to stay, but it should really be understood to mean the former.
and Wise Use of Water.
The Union Ministry of Water Resources has undertaken a review and revision of the National Water Policy (NWP) 2002. The present article is intended as a contribution to that process. It will not offer a detailed critique of the Ministry's discussion paper, but will outline an approach for its consideration.
Need for radical overhaul
Ideally, a review at this stage should take climate change into account, but while we know that climate change may mean increased precipitation in some areas, increased drought in some others, and increased variability of precipitation, we do not yet know in detail precisely what will happen, when and where. Studies on these matters are still going on. A policy response will have to wait for some reasonably definitive findings on them.
However, an overhaul of the NWP is necessary even without reference to the issue of climate change. The reason for saying so is that there has been a gross mismanagement of water, as evidenced by the following selective list:
• intermittent, unreliable, unsafe and inequitable water supply in urban areas;
• rivers turned into sewers or poison, and aquifers contaminated;
• intractable water-related conflicts between uses, sectors, areas, States;
• major and medium irrigation systems in disarray, rendering poor and unreliable service, and characterised by inequities of various kinds;
• alarming depletion of aquifers in many parts of the country;
• inefficiency and waste in every kind of water-use;
• the environmental/ecological impacts of big water-resource projects, poor EIAs, the displacement of people by such projects and the general failure to resettle and rehabilitate project-affected persons; and so on.
The need for a radical reform of water policy is evident.
Not revision but new start
If so, the kind of transformation that is needed will not be achieved by incremental changes in the NWP 2002. If we start from NWP 2002, our thinking will quickly fall into well-worn grooves, and getting out of them will be difficult. It is necessary to put aside the NWP 2002, and start from scratch.
Reversals of past approaches
Such an exercise will involve many reversals of past approaches. For instance, reversing the usual approach of projecting a future demand and bringing about a supply-side response to meet that demand, we must start from the fact that the availability of fresh water in nature is finite, and learn to manage our water needs within that availability. This will mean a stringent restraint on the growth of ‘demand' for water (other than basic needs) which will be difficult and will involve painful adjustments; but the effort is inescapable.
A second reversal will have to be on the supply side. Primacy will have to shift from large, centralised, capital-intensive ‘water resource development' (WRD) projects with big dams and reservoirs and canal systems, to small, decentralised, local, community-led, water-harvesting and watershed-development programmes, with the big projects being regarded as projects of the last resort; and the exploitation of groundwater will have to be severely restrained in the interest of resource-conservation as well as equity.
A third reversal will have to be in relation to rivers, from massive interventions in flows and maximal abstraction of waters to letting the rivers flow and keeping interventions to the minimum. Instead of killing rivers and then trying to revive them, we must learn to keep rivers alive, flowing and healthy. A fourth reversal will have to be in the relative roles of the state and the community (from ‘eminent domain' or sovereign powers of the state to the state as trustee holding natural resources in public trust for the community). There may have to be other reversals. The intention is not to discuss these matters in detail but to indicate the kind of changes that will be needed.
Multiple perspectives
The changes cannot be piecemeal and fragmented. They need to be integral parts of a holistic vision. One difficulty in this regard is the multiplicity of perspectives on water that need to be taken into account. For instance, consider the following:
• the rights perspective, focussing on the fundamental or human right to water, traditional rights of access of communities (tribal or other) to rivers, lakes, forests, and other sources of sustenance and livelihoods, and so on;
• the social justice/ equity perspective, concerned with issues of inequity in urban and rural water and sanitation services, injustices to the poor and to the Scheduled Castes or Tribes, forced displacement by major projects and deficiencies or failures in resettlement /rehabilitation, inequities in access to irrigation water in the command areas of projects, etc;
• the women's perspective stressing the burden on women of fetching water from long distances as well as managing water in the home, with no voice in water-planning or water-management institutions;
• the community perspective urging the right relationship between state and civil society, the empowerment of people vis-à-vis the state (or the corporates), the community management of common pool resources, mobilisation of people for local water augmentation and management, social control of water use and sanctions against misuse, voice in water policy formulation and water management, etc;
• the state perspective, concerned with legislation, policy formulation, planning, administration, ‘governance' at all three levels, ensuring/enforcing rights, providing or facilitating or regulating water supply and sanitation services, preventing or resolving or adjudicating inter-state/inter-sector/inter-use/inter-area water disputes, prescribing and enforcing quality standards, managing water relations with other countries, ensuring compliance with international law, and so on;
• the engineering perspective (which needs no explanation);
• the water quality perspective concerned with the enforcement of water quality standards, and the prevention and control of pollution and contamination of water;
• the citizen/ water-user perspectives tending to assert requirements for various uses (drinking, domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural, etc) quite strongly, but showing poor recognition of the obligations of economical and efficient use, avoidance of waste and conflict, conservation of the resource, and protection of the environment;
• the economic perspective that sees water as economic good subject to market forces, and argues for water markets, the full economic pricing of water, the privatisation of water services, private sector participation in water resource projects, etc;
• the ‘growth' perspective focussing on economic growth at a certain desired rate, and tending to be impatient with social, community, rights, equity, environmental or other perspectives;
• the business perspective, concerned with a supply response to demand, the objective being profits, professing ‘corporate social responsibility' but tending to subordinate it to the imperative of profits;
• the legal perspective, which is not really a separate perspective, as legal issues arise in all perspectives; but specifically concerned among other things with the constitutional division of legislative powers, Centre-State and inter-State relations on water, inter-State river-water disputes, riparian law, international water law, questions of ownership and/or control of water, etc. (all these being not merely legal but also socio-political questions); and
• the environmental/ecological perspective, concerned with the protection of the environmental/ecological system from the impacts of ‘developmental' activity, and the prescription/monitoring of remedial measures.
The foregoing enumeration of perspectives will immediately show that a multiplicity of disciplines is involved. The formulation of a national water policy must necessarily be an inter-disciplinary exercise.
Overarching perspective
If these perspectives are to be integrated and harmonised into a coherent whole, some will have to be regarded as the overarching, governing perspectives, and all others subsumed under them. In the author's view, the ecological and social justice perspectives will have to be the overarching perspectives, and all other perspectives subordinated to them. In particular, engineering and economics, which have so far been the dominant disciplines, must be firmly kept under check by ecology and by the idea of social justice.
Dharma perspective
Keeping in mind Gandhiji's firm conviction that rights flow from responsibilities, we can consider combining the ecological and social justice perspectives into a moral responsibility perspective or, in other words, an ethical or dharma perspective. Let us think in terms of our responsibility or dharma in relation to:
• the poor, deprived, disadvantaged, or disempowered;
• other humans sharing the resource with us, including those in our State or other States, our country or other countries, our generation or future generations;
• other species or forms of life;
• rivers, lakes, aquifers, forests, nature in general, Planet Earth itself.
That is the overarching perspective that this writer would like to propose. In place of the current slogan of Integrated Water Resource Management or IWRM about which he has strong reservations, he would like to offer the alternative formulation of Responsible, Harmonious, Just and Wise Use of Water.
Alas, RHJWUW is not a catchy term like IWRM. The latter term has come to stay, but it should really be understood to mean the former.
Sheila out to privatise Jal Board: BJP (Hindu 28 October 2010)
NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijay Kumar Malhotra on Wednesday charged Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit with attempting to privatise the Delhi Jal Board.
Expressing his opposition to the decision taken by the Jal Board at a meeting chaired by Ms. Dikshit on Tuesday to hand over meter reading and maintenance to Tata Consultancy Services, Prof. Malhotra said this was “merely the first step” in the process leading to privatisation.
The BJP leader said the Chief Minister was creating conditions similar to privatisation of the power sector in Delhi and alleged that this move had been on her agenda for a long time. He said the “effective opposition” to the proposal by the BJP had forced the Chief Minister to backtrack on “various occasions”.
Noting that a contract of Rs. 53 crore has been awarded to TCS for discharge of its duties, Prof. Malhotra warned that water bills could become higher following privatisation. “Already the people of Delhi are suffering on account of fast meters for power. Lately, water bills are also showing a five to ten fold increase,” he added.
Ms. Dikshit of turning “insensitive to popular feelings” on various issues ever since she was elected to the Chief Minister's post for the third time, he said.
Expressing his opposition to the decision taken by the Jal Board at a meeting chaired by Ms. Dikshit on Tuesday to hand over meter reading and maintenance to Tata Consultancy Services, Prof. Malhotra said this was “merely the first step” in the process leading to privatisation.
The BJP leader said the Chief Minister was creating conditions similar to privatisation of the power sector in Delhi and alleged that this move had been on her agenda for a long time. He said the “effective opposition” to the proposal by the BJP had forced the Chief Minister to backtrack on “various occasions”.
Noting that a contract of Rs. 53 crore has been awarded to TCS for discharge of its duties, Prof. Malhotra warned that water bills could become higher following privatisation. “Already the people of Delhi are suffering on account of fast meters for power. Lately, water bills are also showing a five to ten fold increase,” he added.
Ms. Dikshit of turning “insensitive to popular feelings” on various issues ever since she was elected to the Chief Minister's post for the third time, he said.
Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level (Hindu 28 October 2010)
Meteorologists and activists are divided on causes of the drought, with some pointing to climate change as a factor.
One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.
The drought currently affecting swaths of north and west Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the Rio Negro, which flows into the world-famous Rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in 1902 on October 24.
In 24 hours the level of the Rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low.
The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their levels plunge since early August, stranding village dwellers who rely on the Amazon's waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks.
According to local authorities nearly half of Amazonas state's 62 municipalities have declared states of emergency, among them Manaquiri, one of the worst hit areas during the last major drought in the region in 2005. That year thousands of families were forced to abandon their homes and schools closed for lack of students.
Authorities say around 62,000 families have been affected by this year's receding rivers and on October 22 the federal government announced $13.5m in aid for the region.
More intense near border
The problem has been particularly intense up river from state capital Manaus towards the border with Peru and Colombia. But the area around the city has also been badly hit. In Iranduba, 24km from Manaus, authorities are reportedly planning to hack a small road through the rainforest in order to reconnect their community with the outside world.
“In my whole life I have never seen a drought like this one,” 50-year-old river-dweller Manoel Alves Pereira told the local A Critica newspaper.
Colonel Leite, from Manaus' Regional Air Force Command, said two Hercules cargo planes had ferried around 830 tonnes of food aid to isolated regions near the Amazon towns of Tefe and Tabatinga.
“Medium and large boats have not been able to reach various places across the Amazon,” he said. “Our planes take the supplies to the airport and from there the transport has to be done in small boats or on foot — these are the only ways of reaching some communities.” Meteorologists and activists are divided on the drought's causes — some point to hurricanes in the Atlantic which may have sapped humidity from the Amazon while others blame forest fires for stifling rainfall or speculate that early effects of global warming may already be reshaping the region's climate patterns.
Rafael Cruz, a Greenpeace activist in Manaus who has been monitoring the drought, said while the rise and fall of the Amazon's rivers was a normal process, recent years had seen both extreme droughts and flooding become worryingly frequent.
Although it was too early to link the droughts to global warming directly, Cruz said such events were an alert about what could happen if action was not taken.
“The photographs we are seeing of boats stranded in dry riverbeds are photographs that show the face of climate change, that show the impact climate change could have on the 20 million people who live in the Amazon region.” “If this situation continues the state of Amazonas will live in a permanent state of emergency. The changes in people's lives would be horrific.”
One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate change on the region.
The drought currently affecting swaths of north and west Amazonia has been described as the one of the worst in the last 40 years, with the Rio Negro, which flows into the world-famous Rio Amazonas, reportedly hitting its lowest levels since records began in 1902 on October 24.
In 24 hours the level of the Rio Negro near Manaus in Brazil dropped 6cm to 13.63 metres, a historic low.
The Solimoes and Amazonas rivers have also seen their levels plunge since early August, stranding village dwellers who rely on the Amazon's waterways for transport and food and marooning wooden boats on brown sand banks.
According to local authorities nearly half of Amazonas state's 62 municipalities have declared states of emergency, among them Manaquiri, one of the worst hit areas during the last major drought in the region in 2005. That year thousands of families were forced to abandon their homes and schools closed for lack of students.
Authorities say around 62,000 families have been affected by this year's receding rivers and on October 22 the federal government announced $13.5m in aid for the region.
More intense near border
The problem has been particularly intense up river from state capital Manaus towards the border with Peru and Colombia. But the area around the city has also been badly hit. In Iranduba, 24km from Manaus, authorities are reportedly planning to hack a small road through the rainforest in order to reconnect their community with the outside world.
“In my whole life I have never seen a drought like this one,” 50-year-old river-dweller Manoel Alves Pereira told the local A Critica newspaper.
Colonel Leite, from Manaus' Regional Air Force Command, said two Hercules cargo planes had ferried around 830 tonnes of food aid to isolated regions near the Amazon towns of Tefe and Tabatinga.
“Medium and large boats have not been able to reach various places across the Amazon,” he said. “Our planes take the supplies to the airport and from there the transport has to be done in small boats or on foot — these are the only ways of reaching some communities.” Meteorologists and activists are divided on the drought's causes — some point to hurricanes in the Atlantic which may have sapped humidity from the Amazon while others blame forest fires for stifling rainfall or speculate that early effects of global warming may already be reshaping the region's climate patterns.
Rafael Cruz, a Greenpeace activist in Manaus who has been monitoring the drought, said while the rise and fall of the Amazon's rivers was a normal process, recent years had seen both extreme droughts and flooding become worryingly frequent.
Although it was too early to link the droughts to global warming directly, Cruz said such events were an alert about what could happen if action was not taken.
“The photographs we are seeing of boats stranded in dry riverbeds are photographs that show the face of climate change, that show the impact climate change could have on the 20 million people who live in the Amazon region.” “If this situation continues the state of Amazonas will live in a permanent state of emergency. The changes in people's lives would be horrific.”
Sheila asked to make use of a full Yamuna (Hindu 27 October 2010)
NEW DELHI: Good monsoon this year has ensured that the Yamuna is finally full in the Delhi stretch after a gap of 30 years. Taking note of this, the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has written to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit “to make good use of this opportunity to restore the health of the river''.
Noting that action will be needed soon to ensure that “this opportunity is not lost”, the Minister listed the problems, efforts being made to tackle the situation and the approach to restore water on the stretch of the Yamuna passing through the Capital. In the letter, the Minister said he had forwarded a concept paper prepared by the National Ganga River Basin Authority on water augmentation in the Yamuna for the Delhi stretch.
In order to restore water in the river, he noted that the Government could look at construction of storage dams at the upstream to provide flow to the river and creation of ponds and recharging wells in the floodplains so that excess water could be stored during the monsoon and released during the lean season. Ponds may also be recharged with treated waste water wherever feasible, he noted. The Minister's note also looks at the negative aspects of the approach.
Speaking about water management in the Yamuna floodplains he noted: “The Yamuna floodplain in Delhi is the most promising area with regard to fresh surface water and ground water resource potential. Thus an insight into the groundwater resources, groundwater recharge potential and storage of surface water options in these floodplains is a necessity.”
He also noted that there is a need to store a portion of the water that Delhi's Yamuna gets through inter-State agreement, out of which monsoon run-off account for a large part, in artificially-created surface and sub-surface reservoirs for utilising during non-monsoon period.
Noting that action will be needed soon to ensure that “this opportunity is not lost”, the Minister listed the problems, efforts being made to tackle the situation and the approach to restore water on the stretch of the Yamuna passing through the Capital. In the letter, the Minister said he had forwarded a concept paper prepared by the National Ganga River Basin Authority on water augmentation in the Yamuna for the Delhi stretch.
In order to restore water in the river, he noted that the Government could look at construction of storage dams at the upstream to provide flow to the river and creation of ponds and recharging wells in the floodplains so that excess water could be stored during the monsoon and released during the lean season. Ponds may also be recharged with treated waste water wherever feasible, he noted. The Minister's note also looks at the negative aspects of the approach.
Speaking about water management in the Yamuna floodplains he noted: “The Yamuna floodplain in Delhi is the most promising area with regard to fresh surface water and ground water resource potential. Thus an insight into the groundwater resources, groundwater recharge potential and storage of surface water options in these floodplains is a necessity.”
He also noted that there is a need to store a portion of the water that Delhi's Yamuna gets through inter-State agreement, out of which monsoon run-off account for a large part, in artificially-created surface and sub-surface reservoirs for utilising during non-monsoon period.
To plug water revenue leaks, Delhi dials TCS (Indian Express 27 October 2010)
Jal Board clears Rs 53-cr IT project for five years, digitised bills from next year
The Delhi Jal Board on Tuesday got the approval to go ahead with a Rs 53-crore Information Technology project outsourcing revenue management to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). If all goes according to plan, water meters across the city would get a hi-tech makeover by next year, with manual billing being replaced by digitised metering, billing and bill collection.
TCS won the tender which had other high-profile bidders like Infosys and Wipro. Senior officials said 50 per cent of the entire cost of the project would be paid to TCS in the first nine months. “The total cost of Rs 53 crore includes Rs 21 crore capital cost and Rs 32 crore cost for operations and management,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said.
Jal Board officials say outsourcing revenue management would help them check revenue losses, which are huge due to the difficulties in monitoring 90 zonal offices across the city. Now, on behalf of the water utility, TCS would develop a comprehensive hardware and software solution.
The revamped model proposes to be an integrated system that would provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to cap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.
For metering, the project will have separate modules for water and sewerage connections and meter status. While the entire data would be digitised, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of India to properly analyse revenue flow and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.
According to officials, TCS would implement the system — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up — in nine months. The company will continue to work on the project for five years.
Apart from other approvals, at its 100th Board meeting, the DJB also got a green signal for deployment of an Intelligent Transport System for water tankers in the city. Worked out at the cost of Rs 62 crore, the project proposes to monitor system operations, ensure compliance to schedules and service quality, minimise revenue leakages, optimise costs, enhance safety and generate valuable traffic information for fine-tuning mobility plans for tankers.
The Delhi Jal Board on Tuesday got the approval to go ahead with a Rs 53-crore Information Technology project outsourcing revenue management to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). If all goes according to plan, water meters across the city would get a hi-tech makeover by next year, with manual billing being replaced by digitised metering, billing and bill collection.
TCS won the tender which had other high-profile bidders like Infosys and Wipro. Senior officials said 50 per cent of the entire cost of the project would be paid to TCS in the first nine months. “The total cost of Rs 53 crore includes Rs 21 crore capital cost and Rs 32 crore cost for operations and management,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said.
Jal Board officials say outsourcing revenue management would help them check revenue losses, which are huge due to the difficulties in monitoring 90 zonal offices across the city. Now, on behalf of the water utility, TCS would develop a comprehensive hardware and software solution.
The revamped model proposes to be an integrated system that would provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to cap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.
For metering, the project will have separate modules for water and sewerage connections and meter status. While the entire data would be digitised, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of India to properly analyse revenue flow and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.
According to officials, TCS would implement the system — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up — in nine months. The company will continue to work on the project for five years.
Apart from other approvals, at its 100th Board meeting, the DJB also got a green signal for deployment of an Intelligent Transport System for water tankers in the city. Worked out at the cost of Rs 62 crore, the project proposes to monitor system operations, ensure compliance to schedules and service quality, minimise revenue leakages, optimise costs, enhance safety and generate valuable traffic information for fine-tuning mobility plans for tankers.
To plug water revenue leaks, Delhi dials TCS (Indian Express 27 October 2010)
Jal Board clears Rs 53-cr IT project for five years, digitised bills from next year
The Delhi Jal Board on Tuesday got the approval to go ahead with a Rs 53-crore Information Technology project outsourcing revenue management to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). If all goes according to plan, water meters across the city would get a hi-tech makeover by next year, with manual billing being replaced by digitised metering, billing and bill collection.
TCS won the tender which had other high-profile bidders like Infosys and Wipro. Senior officials said 50 per cent of the entire cost of the project would be paid to TCS in the first nine months. “The total cost of Rs 53 crore includes Rs 21 crore capital cost and Rs 32 crore cost for operations and management,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said.
Jal Board officials say outsourcing revenue management would help them check revenue losses, which are huge due to the difficulties in monitoring 90 zonal offices across the city. Now, on behalf of the water utility, TCS would develop a comprehensive hardware and software solution.
The revamped model proposes to be an integrated system that would provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to cap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.
For metering, the project will have separate modules for water and sewerage connections and meter status. While the entire data would be digitised, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of India to properly analyse revenue flow and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.
According to officials, TCS would implement the system — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up — in nine months. The company will continue to work on the project for five years.
Apart from other approvals, at its 100th Board meeting, the DJB also got a green signal for deployment of an Intelligent Transport System for water tankers in the city. Worked out at the cost of Rs 62 crore, the project proposes to monitor system operations, ensure compliance to schedules and service quality, minimise revenue leakages, optimise costs, enhance safety and generate valuable traffic information for fine-tuning mobility plans for tankers.
The Delhi Jal Board on Tuesday got the approval to go ahead with a Rs 53-crore Information Technology project outsourcing revenue management to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). If all goes according to plan, water meters across the city would get a hi-tech makeover by next year, with manual billing being replaced by digitised metering, billing and bill collection.
TCS won the tender which had other high-profile bidders like Infosys and Wipro. Senior officials said 50 per cent of the entire cost of the project would be paid to TCS in the first nine months. “The total cost of Rs 53 crore includes Rs 21 crore capital cost and Rs 32 crore cost for operations and management,” DJB CEO Ramesh Negi said.
Jal Board officials say outsourcing revenue management would help them check revenue losses, which are huge due to the difficulties in monitoring 90 zonal offices across the city. Now, on behalf of the water utility, TCS would develop a comprehensive hardware and software solution.
The revamped model proposes to be an integrated system that would provide advanced features like on-the-spot bill generation and payment, GIS mapping of water connections to cap non-revenue water and thefts, SMS alerts and automated generation of notices for late payments or defaulters.
For metering, the project will have separate modules for water and sewerage connections and meter status. While the entire data would be digitised, the water utility would also make use of the GIS map prepared by the Delhi government and Survey of India to properly analyse revenue flow and track consumers missing from the DJB’s records. The state-of-the-art equipment will also allow consumers to pay their bills at the Delhi government’s Jeevan centres.
According to officials, TCS would implement the system — develop the complete software and hardware application for DJB, develop a data centre, and a data recovery centre for a total back-up — in nine months. The company will continue to work on the project for five years.
Apart from other approvals, at its 100th Board meeting, the DJB also got a green signal for deployment of an Intelligent Transport System for water tankers in the city. Worked out at the cost of Rs 62 crore, the project proposes to monitor system operations, ensure compliance to schedules and service quality, minimise revenue leakages, optimise costs, enhance safety and generate valuable traffic information for fine-tuning mobility plans for tankers.
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