201 water bodies to be revived with assistance of IIT Delhi, NEERI: Delhi govt tells SC

NEW DELHI: With Delhi staring at a alarming situation to reach zero ground water level by 2020, the NCT government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it has frame a time bound action plan to revive 201 out of 1011 water bodies in the state to avert the looming crisis.
Appearing before a bench of Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, Delhi government counsel DN Goburdhun informed the court that Delhi Jal Board and Department of Irrigation & Flood Control has prepared action plan for rejuvenation of 201 water bodies and would soon come out with implementation plan for their preservation.
Goburdun said that a pilot project had been initiated by the department at Gogha dairy in northwest Delhi where waste contaminated water from local village would be treated with phytorid technology and would be used for groundwater recharging. He informed the court that the government is taking help of specialised agencies including IIT Delhi for reviving the water bodies in the state.
":A project has been initiated by Delhi Jal Board by giving consultancy contract to a government corporation Water and Power Consultancy Services as a consultant which will submit a detailed project report and tender documents for rejuvenation of 12 water bodies. Another consultancy assignment for 93 water bodies has been given to IIT Delhi. The remaining water bodies out of selected 201 water bodies has also been taken up through NEERI. After submission of report/tendered documents, physical work for rejuvenation of water bodies shall commence," he said.
The government filed its reply after the court directed it to take immediate action to preserve and rejuvenate water bodies as the Central Ground Water Board report said that the water level had been decreasing from 0.5 meter to more than 2 meter per year at different places in Delhi and could lead to a crisis if it is not stalled in near future.
Compiling the data on ground water level from year 2000 onwards, the Board in its report said that water level at all of it its 20 monitoring stations witnessed steady decline of water level and areas around Chhatarpur, Dwarka and Presidents Estate were the worst hit. As per the report, 27.22 percent of 1483 sq km of NCT area was having ground water to the level of 0-5 meter in 2010 but in 17 years that area has shrunken to 11.62 percent of the area. In 2000, the level of ground water had not gone beyond 40 meter but at present 15 per cent of Delhi, which is around 222 sq km, has water level of 40-80 meter.
The bench, however, questioned the government on why it had selected only 201 water bodies and why not plan be framed for rest of the water bodies. Goburdun said that it was not possible to rejuvenate all water bodies at one go as it would be huge task and would difficult to manage.
The court thereafter directed the government to file a comprehensive report and also take steps to curb dumping of waste and drainage water in those bodies which posed the risk of destroying them.