Delhi’s Water Crisis Manifests Itself In Huge Queues For Water

The World Meteorologist Organization, the UN’s weather agency stated this past April that “Asia is heating up faster than the global average, with increased casualties and economic losses from floods, storms, and more severe heatwaves”. These words came to action in May while Delhi suffered one of the worst heatwaves in history, with temperatures crossing 50 degrees Celsius in certain areas. The extreme weather took more than 30 human lives in a single month and created a major water shortage.

During the heatwave, the Delhi’s Water Minster Atishi warned the city is facing a daily 50 million gallons water shortage in result of the lack of water supply from the Yamuna River and other sources. Moreover, the Delhi government blame the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for blocking Delhi’s share of water through the Munak Canal, which falls under the Haryana government, and is one of the primary sources of water.

With that said, the lieutenant Governor’s office declared that the shortage is due to leakage in the canal in addition to lack of cleaning of pipelines. Furthermore, he claims Haryana and neighborhood states are supplying adequate water supplies.

Regardless the reason, this major water shortage is harming the people of Delhi and resulting in water tankers distributing water across the city, while citizens were rushing toward the tankers desperately waiting to fill up as many buckets as they possibly can, and waiting on long queues in the heat in order to do so. Furthermore, certain neighborhoods only received water once a day.

Whether the reason to the water shortage are political disputes, the need to re-examine the wather-recycling policy in Delhi, or the mantnince of the Munak Canal Delhi’s people and their need to wait in line for this basic human necessity must be addressed.

Click here to view the huge water queues.