Delhi: Residents Scramble With Vessels After Tanker Amid Water Crisis
The national capital continues to battle an acute water crisis as the heatwave conditions persist. Residents are forced to depend on tankers to meet their daily water needs.
Videos shared by news agency ANI showed a mad scramble among residents in Okhla Phase 2 area as a water tanker arrived. People were seen running after the tanker with some jumping queue and climbing on top of the vehicle with their pipes.
Another video shared by ANI showed residents with their buckets at Sanjay camp in Chanakyapuri area.
On Friday, the Arvind Kejriwal government moved the Supreme Court seeking additional water supply from neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
An all out political war of words has erupted between the Aam Aadmi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs Haryana, over the water crisis.
“We are releasing water to the national capital, as per the agreement. In fact, more is being released to Delhi so that there is no shortage. But levelling allegations and blaming Haryana for their own mismanagement is not right,” Haryana agriculture minister Kanwar Pal had said on Friday.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had sought BJP’s help in solving the capital’s water crisis. “If the BJP talks to its governments in Haryana and UP and gets some water for Delhi for a month, then the people of Delhi will greatly appreciate this step of the BJP. Such scorching heat is not in anyone’s control. But if we all work together, can we provide relief to the people from this?” he had posted on social platform X.
In the sweltering heat, people wait in long queues, hoping to fill at least one bucket, as tankers come and go without adequately serving the large populations in the colonies.
“It has become a very big problem, only one tanker comes and the colony is so big. We have written two applications to the government but who listens to the poor? We have to buy the water to drink it. One bottle costs us 20 rupees”, a resident of Geeta Colony, told ANI.