The Hindu : New Delhi News : Doubts over functioning of Sonia Vihar water plant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 08, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Doubts over functioning of Sonia Vihar water plant

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Rusted pipes and plant; incomplete reservoirs add to its woes

NEW DELHI: Though flushing of the Rs. 900-crore Sonia Vihar water treatment plant is on, the large amount of rust it had gathered due to lack of use over the past couple of years along with the Delhi Jal Board's inability to complete all its reservoirs has put a question mark on how much of water it will be able to supply the targeted areas in South and East Delhi and when.

According to sources, the level of rust in its pipes and the plant was so high that even DJB officials were surprised to see it. This was when after being refused entry into the plant thrice they finally managed to get in on Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's intervention.

Not only have the iron pipes got heavily rusted, even the plant has suffered due to the vagaries of time because of no use, they said, wondering why iron pipes were used in the first place instead of concrete ones. The sources said while the flushing work is on as Uttar Pradesh had released its final instalment of 300 cusecs of water in the last week of June, the flushing work is taking more time than expected.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had stated in May that water from the plant would start reaching Delhi homes in July. However, sources insist that this deadline could not be met. Even if the DJB starts supplying water it would only be a small fraction of the 140 MGD capacity of the plant.

Another area of concern is that only 11 of the 28 reservoirs meant for the plant have been completed thus far despite the project having already been delayed by three years.

The Delhi Jal Board, however, does not see a problem in any of this. DJB spokesperson, S. Cheema, said the flushing of the plant is on and it would be operational soon. While not putting a time-frame to the supply of water, she said it would increase in a phased manner. Denying that there was any problem of `rust', she said reservoirs also were not an issue as there was a lot of idle capacity in the existing ones through which water is supplied to the targeted areas and can be utilised for the purpose.

The Sonia Vihar plant has been mired in controversies since inception. While the Central Vigilance Commission had raised doubts over its tendering process and how the Rs 295.75 crore cost was increased to nearly Rs 900 crores without any re-tendering and had directed its Technical Examination Committee to probe the matter, it had also led to a major tiff between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on the issue of supply of water.

While U.P. had started releasing water for the plant in May, in late June Delhi Government had accused it of not releasing the final instalment of the same. This had prompted U.P. Irrigation Minister Meerajuddin Ahmad to point out that it was only on June 26 that the State had received Delhi's demand for additional water and the very next day the order for its release was given.

The raw water for Sonia Vihar plant has been coming from the Tehri Dam via Upper Ganga Canal up to Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh and then through a 3,250 mm diameter conduit to Delhi.

While the conduit was constructed by the National Building Construction Company on behalf of the U.P. Jal Nigam, the work for providing and laying of clear water transmission mains over 34 km in East Delhi has been carried out by Larsen and Toubro.

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