New Delhi, June 20 With Delhi Water Minister Atishi threatening to sit on an indefinite fast if the national capital does not start getting "its share of water" from Haryana by Friday, an old video of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal talking about Delhi's self-sufficiency in water production and role of the tanker mafia in creating an artificial shortage has surfaced.
In the 2015 video, the Delhi CM can be heard questioning the water shortage in the national Capital despite producing adequate drinking water daily.
He can be heard saying, "84 crore gallons of water is produced in the national Capital daily and Delhi's population is 2 crore. This means that 250 litres of water is produced per capita per day. So why is there a shortage of water?"
He goes on to blame pilferage by the water tanker mafia for the shortage being faced by Delhiites and says that if this pilferage is stopped, then there will be no water shortage in homes.
He says that the AAP Government will crack down on the mafia which sells one water tanker for Rs 2,000 and send the owners of the tanker companies and their political masters to Tihar jail because they are creating a shortage by stealing water.
This video flies in the face of claims of the Delhi Government that the national Capital is facing a water shortage as it is not getting an adequate supply of water from Haryana.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in getting water from Haryana, Atishi wrote on Wednesday, "On June 18, Haryana released 513 MGD water to Delhi as against the standard supply of 613 MGD. Decrease in water supply by about 100 MGD has impacted lives of at least 28 lakh city residents."
However, amid the ongoing blame game, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini recently refuted accusations of any discrimination against the national Capital in terms of water supply and blamed the crisis on the "inept and inefficient" AAP government.
Claiming that the Haryana government was releasing more water than earlier for the National Capital, CM Saini said the crisis was the result of the Delhi government's "failure" to build a system of water distribution despite 10 years of being in power.
"In the past 10 years, they did not build any mechanism for water distribution to city residents," he said.
The issues of water theft and the role of private tankers in aggravating the water crisis have seen the BJP and the AAP taking potshots at each other.
The Haryana CM said, "Under the AAP regime, the middlemen and corrupt officials are making money. Rather than engaging in a blame game, they should look within and reform the system."
While the BJP says that the private tanker mafia is "flourishing" under the AAP regime, Atishi has blamed the water crisis on collusion between senior officials and the tanker mafia.
She claimed that the tankers that operated in January 2023 stood at 1,179 and were reduced to a mere 888 in January 2024, without her knowledge.
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