The Hindu: New Delhi: Friday,
April 18, 2014.
The extensive
Delhi zone of the Indian Railways, it seems, is still dependent on tubewells
for its whooping water demands running into lakhs of litres and has failed to
set up Rain Water Harvesting Systems (RWHS) at its stations and colonies.
RTI query;
In an RTI
reply, the Railways has stated that 14,45,500 litres of water was consumed
daily in its eight colonies in Delhi for domestic purposes and also for
cleaning trains. All this water was drawn from tubewells .
The reply was
filed to an RTI query by environment activist Vikrant Tongad, who has been
pursuing the issue of depleting ground water and the failure of various
government bodies in setting up RWHS.
Mr. Tongad
had last year sought information on whether there were any RWHS at any of the
Delhi railway stations and the source of water used there.
The Railways
in its delayed reply has said the 14.45 lakh litres of water comes from 15
tubewells – one in Hazrat Nizammudin Railway Colony, four in Lajpat Nagar
Railway Colony, one in Gulabi Bagh, three in Sewa Nagar, one in Lodhi Colony
and five in Sarojini Nagar Colony.
Only Gulabi
Bagh Railway Colony has a RWHS.
In another
reply, the Railways said four RWHS were present in four railway colonies,
including Moti Bagh, Panchkuian Road and Tughlakabad, but there was no data on
the quantity of rain water collected.
In these
colonies, 37 tubewells were also used to meet a daily water requirement of
31.79 lakh litres.
The reply
also shows that the Railways does not have any policy on rain water harvesting.
Mr. Tongad
said that “despite such huge stations, especially the New Delhi Railway station
which is also the headquarters of the northernmost range of the Indian Railways,
no space was being used for rain water harvesting.”
He said there
was a rule in Delhi that if any agency was discharging huge quantities of used
water daily, it has to recycle the same but the Railways was not doing so.
He also said,
“rain water can be collected in storage tanks at stations but it should not be
sent directly through the recharge pipes into the ground as our stations were
dirty and any rain water sent directly into the ground would pollute the
groundwater”.
Mr. Tongad
said he has also filed a complaint before the Central Information Commission
against the Railways for furnishing a delayed and unsatisfactory reply to his
RTI application.
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