Haryana moves HC accusing DJB of wasting water

Haryana government today moved a plea in Delhi High Court accusing DJB of wasting water by not opening gates of its twin pipelines connecting Munak canal to the Wazirabad water treatment plant (WTP) here.
The neighbouring state has also contended that the Delhi High Court does not have the jurisdiction to go into the matter of inter-state water disputes as well as to interpret inter-state agreements and their implementation.
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) too moved a plea seeking to restrain Haryana's irrigation department from connecting the older Delhi sub-branch canal with the new Munak canal.
It has said connecting the two would result in mixing of water from both systems and thus, there would be no proper accounting of water being supplied to Delhi from Haryana.

DJB has also sought directions to Haryana to connect the older canal with the twin pipelines so that level of water at Wazirabad WTP is maintained as per Supreme Court directions.
Both pleas are likely to be heard by a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul on May 1.

Haryana in its application has contended that as per the 2007 pre-approved plan for construction of Munak carrier lined channel (CLC), the CLC and Delhi sub-branch are to be linked.
It has said that the reason for the linking was that if Munak CLC gets damaged then water to Wazirabad and Haiderpur WTPs can be provided through the Delhi sub-branch.

It said the work for linking the two is 50 per cent complete and was expected to be completed by June 30.
It said that DJB is not opening gates of the twin pipelines connecting Munak with Wazirabad and hence, Haiderpur is being supplied excess water which is leading to 17 per cent wastage of the precious resource.
The court on March 27 had ordered instalment of ultrasonic water meters in Munak canal to measure the water there.