Poor fight for every drop
In this teeming capital city of more than 20 million people, a worsening drought is amplifying the vast inequality between India's rich and poor.
The politicians, civil servants and corporate lobbyists who live in substantial houses and apartments in central Delhi pay very little to get limitless supplies of piped water whether for their bathrooms, kitchens or to wash the car, dog, or spray a manicured lawn. They can do all that for as little as $10-$15 a month.
But step into one of the slum areas in the inner city, or a giant disorganised housing estate on the outskirts and there is a daily struggle to get and pay for very limited supplies of water, which is delivered by tanker rather than pipe. And the price is soaring as supplies are fast depleting.Telecom sales representative Amar Nath Shukla, who lives in a giant unauthorised housing sprawl on the south side of Delhi, says he is now paying 700 rupees ($10) for a small tanker to bring him, his wife and three school-age children 2,000 litres of water, their weekly quota.
A year ago, Shukla would buy two of the rusty, oval-shaped tankers a week for 500 rupees each but he cut back to one as the price climbed 40 percent. Delhi's main government district and the army cantonment areas get about 375 litres of water per person per day but residents of Sangam Vihar on average receive only 40 litres for each resident per day. The water comes from boreholes and tankers under the jurisdiction of the Delhi water board, run by the city government.
But residents say some of the boreholes have been taken over by private operators associated with criminal gangs and local politicians.
The water scarcity is even more acute in the Bhalswa Dairy locality of northwestern Delhi. As a result, fights frequently break out when people, mostly can-carrying women and children, sprint towards the arriving tanker. Last year, at least three people were killed in scuffles that broke out over water in Delhi.
"Fights over water supplies have gone up since May and these fights now constitute almost 50% of our daily complaints," said a police official at the Bhalswa Dairy Police station, who declined to be named.
Delhi authorities said the plan to build three dams in the upper reaches of the Yamuna river would help Delhi overcome the shortage.It will take 3-4 years to construct them, said SK Haldar, a top official of the Central Water Commission.
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