New Delhi: Haryana government on Friday 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.
The high court had ordered DJB to install ultrasonic water meters in the Munak canal to measure and log the water supply so as to ascertain whether the court's directions were being complied with or not.
It directed DJB to procure the meters and install them at the head of the Munak canal as well as the older Delhi sub-branch canal and any other places in Delhi as per the wisdom of the amicus.
The court directed DJB to install the meters in two weeks and added that, thereafter, "measurement will be done on regular basis and will be logged".
The court had listed the matter for further hearing on May 1.
The court on December 19 last year had directed Haryana to release 719 cusec water into Munak canal and also 330 cusec into Delhi branch (older canal) for use by WTPs here.
DJB, on March 13, had alleged that since February 10, the water supply had dropped to around 450 cusec.
The civic body had also said that ever since the election results were declared, the supply from Haryana has decreased.
Haryana, on the other hand, had alleged that Delhi wasted the maximum amount of water in the entire country and said it would resume full supply of water once DJB fixes the leakages in its twin pipelines connecting the canal to Wazirabad WTP.
The bench was hearing a PIL seeking commissioning of the 102-km Munak canal which was constructed by Haryana with financial assistance of around Rs 400 crore from the Delhi government on the condition that the national capital will be supplied 80 MGD water from it.
