News: A dry Delhi by 2015!

(PTI 22/03/2006) New Delhi - With the water table in the national capital depleting rapidly, ground water supplies in Delhi are likely to run dry in next nine years, a report published in a recent bulletin of Harvard Business School said.

"With their huge populations, China and India are especially susceptible to these water stresses. Ground water supplies in Delhi are expected to run dry by 2015," the report on the global water crisis said.

The demand for water to sustain and feed the world's people is projected to double by 2025, it said.

Another report by the Centre for Science and Environment said things would have been better if ground water had not been over exploited. The national capital has been witnessing a huge gap between demand and supply of water, it said adding the city, with over 15 million population, requires about 3,324 million litres per day (mld) water but gets only 2,034 mld.

The report blamed the widening gap in large-scale extraction of the natural resource, which has also led to depletion of water levels. A comparison of water levels from 1962 to 1977, 1977 to 1983 and 1983 to 1995 presents a clear picture of depletion of ground water level in different parts of the city.

In 1977, the water table was by and large within six metres in most parts of Delhi with deepest being 23 metres in Mehrauli block near Qutab Minar.

The water table declined to 10 metres by 1983 and in 1995 it was in the range of 10 to 20 metres, the deepest being 35 metres at Gadaipur in Chattarpur basin of Mehrauli block, said a CSE report on rain water harvesting.