Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have ‘backed off’ from plans to provide additional water to Delhi. Haryana too has not shown any interest in the proposal to exchange water with the national capital. Officials have given this information. He said that talks were going on since the year 2019 on the proposals related to Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. He said that both the states have withdrawn from these proposals about six-eight months ago.
Delhi had planned to provide 140 million gallons per day (MGD) of treated wastewater in lieu of Uttar Pradesh’s water. An official said that Uttar Pradesh had said it could give 270 cusecs of water from the Ganga through the Murad Nagar regulator and Delhi had promised Uttar Pradesh to provide treated wastewater in the same quantity from Okhla for irrigation. ‘ The official said that after several meetings and inspections, Uttar Pradesh wrote to us about six months ago that the idea had been abandoned. The official said the Center was in favor of the proposal but Uttar Pradesh rejected it. He said that Uttar Pradesh did not give any reason for doing so.
Delhi also considered a proposal with Haryana, wherein water was sought from Haryana through ‘Carrier Lined Canal’ (CLC) and ‘Delhi Sub Branch’ (DSB) in lieu of 20 MGD of treated waste water for irrigation. . The official said that Haryana has not yet agreed to the proposal. There is little chance of that happening now. Similarly in December 2019, Himachal Pradesh had signed a memorandum of understanding to sell its share of Yamuna water to Delhi for Rs 21 crore per annum, under which from Tajewala (located in Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana). Water was to be supplied to Delhi. Haryana, however, had opposed Himachal Pradesh’s plan to sell its share of Yamuna water to Delhi.
Another official said Haryana argued that its canals did not have the capacity to carry additional water from Himachal Pradesh to Delhi. Due to this, Himachal Pradesh also withdrew from the agreement about six months back. An official said that our engineers worked really hard to turn these plans into reality, but the neighboring states backed out due to political reasons. Delhi requires about 1,200 MGD of water, while the Delhi Jal Board supplies about 950 MGD.