DJB VC Raghav Chadha inspects Delhi govt's floodwater harvesting project

New Delhi: Delhi Jal Board vice-chairman Raghav Chadha on Saturday inspected a 25-acre floodwater harvesting site in the Yamuna floodplains which will be used to recharge groundwater levels in the national Capital.

The Arvind Kejriwal government had last year announced the project to create eco-friendly pits in the Yamuna floodplains to collect excess floodwater from the river during the monsoon season. The water will percolate down and recharge the groundwater levels. "Inspected Kejriwal govt's floodwater harvesting site in floodplains of Palla spread across 25 acres. The project has potential to increase groundwater levels which can be extracted during lean season to augment water supply," Chadha tweeted.

He said that the pilot project will be later extended to 1,000 acres. More than 35 piezometers have been installed to study the impact of the project, a government statement said. Chadha led a DJB team which also inspected the utility's water augmentation project in the Palla region.

He said additional 25 million gallons per day (MGD) water can be extracted from the region. The DJB is already extracting 25 MGD water from the Palla region.

The work of installing 200 tubewells to extract another 25 MGD water will be completed in two years. The water extracted will be used to augment supply in North and Northwest Delhi, Chadha said.

The team also visited the DJB's automation centre created to control and monitor the working of the tubewells in the Palla region.

Chadha stressed the need for water auditing and asked officials to install flowmeters in the entire supply system to prevent wastage of water.