DJB clears 60 crore project to increase capacity of Nangloi water plant

Delhi Jal Board has approved a 59.7 crore project to increase the capacity of Nangloi water treatment plant by upgrading its filter beds and associated infrastructure, the Delhi government said on Saturday.

A government official said that the construction of a new filter house will increase the water treatment capacity of the Nangloi Water Treatment Plant (WTP) by 10-15%, enhancing water water in the region during summers.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who is also the chairman of Delhi Jal Board, said the water utility is working in a phased manner to replace the old water pipelines in various areas across the national capital, and to increase the capacity of various water treatment plants for providing drinking water to all households. “The government has now decided to build a new filter house at Nangloi Water Treatment Plant (WTP) by using latest technology,” Sisodia said.

The Nagloi facility is one of the nine water treatment plants in the city which cumulatively supply 861 MGD (million gallons per day) potable water to the residents. The Nangloi plant has a capacity to supply 40 MGD water but it operates at 44MGD levels above its capacity. Besides Nagloi WTP, the water utility operates plants in Chadrawal, Wazirabad, Haiderpur, Okhla, Dwarka, Bawana, Bhaigirathi plant and Sonia Vihar Water Treatment Plant.

DJB chairman Sisodia said that Nangloi plant currently has 16 filter beds, out of which most of the filter beds need to be urgently repaired and upgraded. “The repair work done by construction with cement and sand does not last very long, so the DJB has decided to build a new filter house. The new filter house will ne equipped with modern technology will be designed in such a way that it will be able to take the overload of water usage in the summer season, and will treat about 10-15 percent more water. It will be efficient enough to take more pollutant load too,” he added.

A DJB official explained that all water treatment plants have filter beds that are filled with sand. “In the filtration process of water treatment, the remaining fine particles, bacteria, taste, odour, etc. are removed from the water. The quality of the water deteriorates due to the failure of the filter beds, thus reducing the production of water. In the coming time, the existing filter beds here might stop working so it was important to solve this problem in time,” official said.

Delhi faces a shortage of raw water supply. The city has a demand-supply gap of over 380 million gallons of water every day. Delhi government’s economic survey 2021-22 stated that the total requirement of water was around 1380 MGD in 2021 which is based on the norm of 60 Gallon Per Capita per Day (GPCD) and the government has targeted a water supply of 998 MGD under its summer action plan 2022.