GHAZIABAD: At least 63 of its 100 wards are facing daily water shortage, a recently conducted ward-wise survey by the water works department of the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation has found.
While the areas under the corporation have a daily requirement of 371 million litres daily (MLD) water, the civic body can meet only 264 MLD, the survey shows indicating that a total of 24.78 lakh residents are reeling under water shortage.
“The survey on the status of water supply under GMC was conducted by the water works department and it has been found that we are not able to meet water demand in 63 of the total 100 wards. The water shortage in all these wards put together is estimated to be over 107 MLD. It is affecting over 3.5 lakh households,” municipal commissioner Mahendra Singh Tanwar said.
The maximum demand and supply gap in the city area has been noted at ward number 50. According to the survey, there is a shortfall of 9.71 MLD water in the ward, which is followed by ward number 93 that is facing a daily shortage of 9.61 MLD.
According to Tanwar, the civic body will soon draw up a plan to check water wastage. “Additionally, we are also concentrating on recycling water which can generate approximately 40 MLD water. We are also planning to bolster Ganga water supply,” Tanwar added.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, due to shortage of water supply more people were relying on groundwater. “Uttar Pradesh groundwater department data for 2020 shows that the water table in Ghaziabad has been depleting at an average rate of 2.37 feet per year since 2016,” Vikrant Sharma, a city-based environmentalist said, adding that in the city area, the groundwater usage is 263.35%.
“The Ghaziabad city comes under notified zone where harnessing groundwater is not permitted but residents have little option but to extract it to meet daily water needs,” Sharma added.
