After Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath slammed Delhi’s Master Plan-2021 as disconnected from ground realities and in need for revision, officials behind the Water Master Plan for Delhi-2021 are in a quandary over issues like adequate water supply and population density in the coming years. “If the MPD-21 is being reviewed, it should be made realistic. Densification of Delhi, as proposed under the DDA Master Plan were based on the fact that Delhi would get additional raw water from the Renuka and Kishau Dam projects, which are stuck due to technical reasons. The DDA has to put a restraint on further densification, so that a Dwarka story is not repeated,” Delhi Jal Board’s chief executive officer Ramesh Negi told Newsline. The densely populated Dwarka township in Southwest Delhi requires 12 million gallons of water per day (MGD), but the DJB is equipped to provide only three MGD. Remaining requirement is met by over exploitation of ground water. Now, attempting to plug gaps in MPD-21, the DJB’s WMP-21 takes into consideration two scenarios — if Delhi gets additional raw water in future, or it doesn’t. “Currently, MPD-21 marks Delhi’s availability of water at 60 gallons per day (GPCD). A non- Renuka Dam would reduce the availability to 30-38 GCPD,” a senior official said. Officials said DJB was consulted at the time of preparing MPD-2021, but densification of Delhi is based on the premise that the Capital would have additional sources of raw water supply. “The DJB cannot draw new or tamper with the existing inter-state water sharing agreement. As per the draft WMP-21, which has been prepared by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Delhi would be divided into approximately 1,100 District Metering Areas (DMA). Each DMA would have 2,000-5,000 connections each, with an inlet and outlet accounting system to counter check with the amount of water given and the billed amount. We can only increase utilisation of underground water resources. It is the responsibility of the Centre to ensure availability of raw water resources as indicated in MPD-21 to make densification of Delhi a feasible option,” DJB’s Member (water supply) R K Garg said. Another constraint with the WMP-21 is that it cannot touch any subject outside of state, officials said. It can, at best, flag the issue for planners to take up. “While it is the mandate of the Central government to address the issues of raw water availability, the DJB’s mandate, as per the draft WMP, is to reduce Non-Revenue Water (NRW). The WMP-21 proposes to improve the water management system by managing each command area and creating DMA in each command,” Garg said.