New Delhi: Admitting that the city was facing water shortage amid increasing population, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today said she will seek the Prime Minister`s intervention in resolving the Munak canal dispute with neighbouring Haryana.
"I will seek Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s intervention into the issue as Haryana was not releasing water from the Munak canal," Dikshit told reporters after a board meeting of the Delhi Jal Board which approved a Rs 3,951 crore budget for the agency.
The Munak canal was constructed by Haryana with financial assistance of around Rs 400 crore given by Delhi government on the condition that the national capital will be supplied 80 MGD water from it.
But later, Haryana refused to supply water to the city. As both sides failed to settle the dispute, the Prime Minister had set up a GoM headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram to find a solution to the matter.
"The population in the city is increasing all the time but the availability of raw water has not gone up. But still we are trying our best to ensure equitable distribution of water," Dikshit, who is also chairperson of DJB, said.
Earlier a meeting of DJB board, presided over by Dikshit approved the budget for 2013-14 presented by the agency`s Chief Executive Officer Debashree Mukherjee. The plan outlay has been a total of Rs 1,869.35 crore has been earmarked as plan outlay while Rs 2,082.43 crore has been set aside for non plan expenditure.
Dikshit commended the efforts made by DJB to extend its supply network to far flung areas while confronting the challenges of limited resources as well as pressures of the ever increasing population.
Mukherjee apprised the board about DJB`s commitment to providing potable water to all the citizens while elaborating on challenges like continual influx of migrants from neighbouring states.
She said DJB was currently producing 835 (MGD) Million Gallon per Day of water to meet the demand of 18 million people in the city.
PTI
