By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS
New Delhi : Ammonia concentration in Yamuna water has gone up ten times the permissible limit, forcing authorities in the national capital to shut down two water treatment plants. Tens of thousands of people went without potable water for the third consecutive day Thursday.
For potable water, the legal limit of ammonia concentration is 0.3 parts per million (ppm). “Recently the ammonia concentration in Yamuna water had gone above 3 ppm,” said R.C. Trivedi, additional director of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
“Water becomes untreatable when ammonia concentration goes beyond 0.4 ppm,” he added.
The board has collected water samples from the Yamuna after being approached by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), the water supply body of the capital, to examine the ammonia concentration and analyse its implications.
“The excessive ammonia level forced the DJB to shut two treatment plants. To treat this level of ammonia, you need to use a huge amount of chlorine but that’s not safe. In the long run, it will have negative health implications,” Trivedi told IANS.
Meanwhile DJB officials blamed industrial waste, primarily from Haryana, for the sudden increase in ammonia levels in the Yamuna.
“Sewage from some factories in Haryana is behind this sudden crisis. The situation has improved and the ammonia concentration has gone down. Both the water treatment plants have started working. We hope normalcy will return by Friday evening,” a source in DJB said.
DJB had shut down the Chandrawal and Wazirabad treatment plants with 95 and 120 million gallons per day (MGD) capacity respectively. This decision affected people in north, central and west Delhi for three days.
Many affected people said that they have not had water supply for the last two days and were forced to carry water from nearby places. There were long queues at taps in some parts of the city.
“We had to go to other areas and stand in long queues for water and then lift buckets up two floors,” moaned Azera Mehmood, a young resident of Indra Vihar near Delhi University.
“Even shopkeepers ran out of bottled water on the very first day of the crisis,” she added.
Residents of Old Rajendra Nagar in west Delhi faced similar problems when DJB cut off the piped water supply. Some residents said they got to know about the water shortage only from the media.
“We had no clue and were not prepared. Later we had to rush to the nearest parks to get water,” said Arpana Singh, a resident.
Priyanka Behl, a college student, said the DJB made no arrangements to deal with the shortage. “There were no water tanks. We were left on our own to tackle the problem,” she said.
Some parts of the city did not receive any water Tuesday and Wednesday but the situation improved slightly Thursday with water supply for about 30 minutes.
This triggered a rush to store water in every available bucket and pot.
Green activist Gopal Krishna said: “Increase in ammonia concentration in Yamuna water should not be seen as a one-off incident. It is a part of the bigger problem — pollution of the Yamuna.”
“I think ammonia in water is due to factory sewage. Though neither DJB nor Delhi government is talking about it openly both know that this is mainly due to industrial slush.”