A water fight in Delhi

“It disappeared right in front of us, within an hour. We thought the water would take a whole night to seep into the ground, but the soil is so rich it got absorbed immediately,” says Rakesh Sherawat, a 26-year-old resident of Pochanpur village in Dwarka. He and members of the Dwarka Water Bodies Committee, constituted last year by the Delhi Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) Najeeb Jung, were reviewing their work.

In a city that routinely pays upwards of ₹1,500 a month for water, the residents of Dwarka decided to act and improve matters. They are beginning to reap dividends now. Two johads, or rainwater-fed lakes, that remained dry for decades, are now filling up through locally devised water supply systems and should help raise the water table from the current abysmal 30 metres below ground.

Room for overflow

“It all began with a survey we conducted in 2011-12 across 50 urban villages in south-west Delhi,” says Diwan Singh, the 43-year-old water activist who also co-founded the anti-corruption NGO Parivartan with AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal. From his tiny office in the back alley of a shopping complex in Dwarka’s sector 23, Singh and his colleagues have been leading the way in the area’s water restoration efforts. “Members of our organisation, Natural Heritage First, found that of the 183 water bodies listed, 93 were dry, 63 had sewage water and the rest were only partially functional. These were the ones in the record books. We found 29 more water bodies that were not even accounted for.”

They next consulted water experts on ways to revive the water bodies and came up with a simple plan — replenish the johads with feeds from the area’s storm-water drains.

An area the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) loves to call “the address of tomorrow”, Dwarka is being developed in two phases — a 20sqkm stretch in the first phase and another 20sqkm coming up in phase two. A planned suburban city, or ‘sub-city’, its storm-water drains along arterial roads ultimately empty into the Najafgarh drain, once known as the Sahibi river, which cuts across Delhi to join the Yamuna river. Singh’s plan was to filter the top layer of water in the storm-water drain before letting it into the water bodies in Dwarka Sector 20 and 23.

“According to our calculations, revival of these water bodies can add five million gallons a day to Dwarka’s water supply and, of course, increase the water table significantly. The L-G liked our idea and we have been trying to implement it. While we feel a bit disappointed that only two water bodies were revived during the monsoons this year, it is a start nevertheless.”

DDA conundrum

“We want to develop at least 40 water bodies in Dwarka. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the authorities,” says Captain PS Mann, a 68-year-old resident of Dwarka’s Sector 23 and a member of the L-G constituted committee. Residents believe the development body is a hindrance to the restoration plans. “Since June 2013, we have been pursuing DDA to fulfil the L-G’s mandate and revive all the water bodies in Dwarka, but it has been tough going. Many a time, we feel it works to their advantage to leave the water bodies in the state they are in,” says Singh.

DDA vice-chairman Balwinder Kumar refutes this. “We are looking to revive all the water bodies in our jurisdiction through the public-private-partnership model,” he says. “Where possible we are working with NGOs and the private sector to speed up this process, but it will take time to gain momentum and show results.”

Vikram Soni, a Delhi-based environmentalist and professor at the Centre for Theoretical Physics at Jamia Millia Islamia, says the Dwarka effort is a first of its kind. “A consistent practice in Indian cities is to create master plans that are known more for their violations than anything else. So what is happening in Dwarka is important and could be a model for other areas across the country,” he says. He also worries about short-sighted planning. “While authorities are keen on phase two of Dwarka’s development, no one has an idea where the water for the region will come from. The situation is only set to get worse. When they are searching for water, these self-sufficient ideas will be the solution.” He throws in a word of caution too: “It is important to remember never to withdraw at a faster rate than the speed at which groundwater is recharged.”

For Mann and company, meanwhile, two johads are only the beginning. “We are going to live here and so will our children. For our water needs, we have to hope that these ideas work. There’s no other choice but to fight for our water, one way or another.”

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