No Ganga water supply in Noida for three weeks

NOIDA: Ganga water supply to apartment complexes and residential blocks of Noida will be stopped from Sunday for the next few days, officials said.
The supply, they said, will be curtailed by the irrigation department due to the annual maintenance work in the Upper Ganga Canal. The Noida Authority provides 240 million litres of Ganga water in the city daily. However, the levels of the total dissolved solids are expected to remain on the higher side for the next few days as groundwater will be supplied to the residents. The daily demand in Noida has been estimated by the Authority to be around 340 MLD.
Officials deputed in the water and sewerage works division in the Authority said the normal supply is expected to be restored from November 4 on the day people will celebrate Diwali. “The irrigation department has informed us about a shutdown of 20 days for the maintenance work. Desilting and repairs of the retaining wall have to be done. Hence, the canal will have to be dried up. Till then, we will exploit our resources to their maximum capacity to improve the quality of the domestic water supply,” said the deputy general manager of the water and sewerage works department, RP Singh.
Officials said that maintenance work takes 30 days but this time it will be completed in 20 days. They said that they have made provisions and stored water in the underground reservoirs to handle the daily needs of the residents till Thursday,” added the officer.
Meanwhile, the Authority is relying upon its ranney wells to meet the demands of residents. The Authority has 11 ranney wells, which have a capacity of supplying up to 18MLD to the city. However, five of them are non-operational or under-utilised due to technical issues or snags. The Authority has floated tenders to get them operational. The general secretary of the Noida federation of apartment owners associations, Rajesh Sahay said, “From 2019, I have been hearing about tenders being floated by the Noida Authority to repair its ranney wells and tubewells. I do not understand why they cannot do it before the supply is shut down every October.”