Sporting a floral top, 10-year-old Khushi was rolling a grey-coloured 30-litre plastic barrel filled with water on a narrow lane of Sanjay Colony in south Delhi.
The fourth grader kicked repeatedly at the barrel to move it through the lane and used her hands whenever it got stuck. She was fetching water to her house from a tanker on the main road. “It is heavy and I can’t lift it. That is why we roll it,” she said.
Despite Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s promise to provide water supply through pipes to Tughlakabad residents within a week, a spot check revealed that the residents were yet to get proper supply through pipes.
In Sanjay Colony in Harkesh Nagar, a slum cluster Mr. Kejriwal had visited on June 2 before making the promise, people were still dependent on water tankers.
While people in B and F block said they got very little water supply for about 10 minutes each for the past three days, residents of A and D block said there had been no supply. Like Khushi, many children were seen fetching water from tankers. People complained that there was a water shortage.
“We tried delivering water [through pipes] there thrice, but the pipeline burst. We are working on it and it will be fixed in two to three days,” said Dinesh Mohaniya, vice-chairman of Delhi Jal Board, which is responsible for water supply in the city.
More water tankers
When asked about some areas not getting water at all, he said, “Since the pipelines burst, the areas ahead of it did not get water at all.”
Residents said that the pipelines were laid about two years ago, but there has been no water supply through them. Almost over a dozen residents, The Hindu met, said that they get free water from DJB tankers and there are more water tankers since Mr. Kejriwal came to power.
On alternate days
The residents said they ration their use of water as the tanker comes on alternate days.
Jubeda Begum, 45, was standing outside her house in A block, next to two 200-litre plastic barrels used to store water, as she complained of water shortage.
“We are always short of water. Sometimes, I have to ‘polish’ my son with little water before sending him to school,” she said.
Ms. Begum, who works as a daily-wage labourer, said, “No one takes a bath twice a day here as there is not enough water. My husband cannot handle the heat and the water shortage, so he stays in the village during the summer and comes back during the winter.”
The city faces water shortage with a requirement of about 1,120 million gallons per day (MGD) and an average water production of about 900 MGD. On certain days, the production peaks to 936 MGD but cannot be sustained at that level, according to DJB.