MCD and DJB lock horns over borewell sealing in parks

New Delhi, April (SocialNews.XYZ) Days after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) pointed to depleting groundwater levels in the national capital and directed the authorities to stop using groundwater for maintaining parks, the civic authorities and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) are at loggerheads.

While the development and maintenance of parks in the city comes under the MCD which has over 15,000 parks across the city, the DJB, which comes under the Delhi Government, has sealed around 150 bore-wells located in municipal parks.

The conflict emerged also because civic authorities are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while the DJB comes under the AAP government.

As per the information, Delhi's three civic bodies have over 15,000 parks and are maintaining around 4000 bore-wells to provide water for maintenance of parks.

The DJB, following the NGT norms, started sealing bore-wells in parks which did not go down well with the BJP-ruled civic authorities.

The authorities have accused the DJB of failing to provide water for parks from its Sewerage Treatment Plants (STP). The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which has around 6,872 parks and 1,398 tubewells, has asked the DJB to provide water for maintenance of parks else many parks will lost their greenery with the mercury soaring.

Nerender Chawla, chairman of standing committee in SDMC, said, "The DJB has sealed bore-wells due to which several plants are dying without water. DJB should have first provided an alternative for water in the parks before sealing bore-wells."

Added Yogesh Verma, chairman of standing committee in North DMC, "We have asked the DJB to provide water for parks immediately. We have also asked the DJB to file a review petition before the NGT to seek its permission to continue use of bore-wells until the DJB provides an alternate source of water for park maintenance."

Source: IANS