Water woes: Agra residents up in arms

Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. Folklore and historical records reveal that Mughal Emperor Akbar abandoned Fatehpur Sikri for Agra for want of water. Five centuries later, the second Mughal capital of Agra is also on the verge of being abandoned by its 2 million inhabitants and this time, it is the drying Yamuna that is to blame.

A heritage city, Agra is facing the toughest water crisis of the past few decades. With the monsoons two months away, the Yamuna has already dried up and the only water available in the river is the industrial sewage that has floated down from the cities like Delhi and Mathura that lie upstream along the Yamuna.

This water has to be purified several times in order to make it potable. The situation is made worse by the looming power crisis in Agra that prevents the water pumping stations from operating for more than a few hours.

The city needs at least 25 crore litres of water every day, the corporation is unable to supply more than 18 crore litres which leaves a demand gap of almost a third, or 7 crore litres. To augment the shortfall, the residents are dependent on fly-by-night operators running water purification plants and using sub-soil water pumped through bore-wells. With fast depleting underground water levels , this source too, is not going to last for long. The people are agitated over the water scarcity.

The ambitious Agra barrage project was strangled by the bureaucratic tangle, and the city is still awaiting the arrival of Gangajal from the Tehri dam. The only ray of hope lies in the project receiving Rs. 355 crores in aid from the Japan International Bank(JIB) that shall be sending a team to Agra on May 17th, after which, the approval of this project could take another year and if the Agra water works sources are to be believed, the pipeline could take at least 3-4 years , which means that the water from this pipeline could only be made available by 2010 or later.

But behind this seemingly eminent solution, there is the fine print. If the funds are made available by the JIB, the water works would have to raise the water prices by atleast three-fold in order to repay the debt.

Talking to the Pioneer, AK Dubey, General Manager, Agra Water Works said that there was an acute shortage of potable water and the Ganga water that had been promised to Agra by the UP Irrigation department was yet to arrive.

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