Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 110

Parameters of Successful Wastewater Reuse in Urban India
Garden STPs under the NDMC
Now, we turn to the other projects
in the Delhi region. There
is a new push to set up decentralized
STPs in the National Capital
Region to provide this treated wastewater
to the city gardens. A group of political
and administrative leaders within
the Delhi legislature and the New Delhi
Municipal Council is driving this initiative.
The Chief Minister of Delhi and the
Chairman of the NDMC are the most
visible leaders. Electricity, water, and
sanitation were key issues in the party’s
campaign, and the party through the
NDMC has initiated a number of sanitation,
water, and electricity projects
since 2015.
In September 2017, the Chief
Minister Kejriwal took over the water
portfolio in the Delhi government to
assume a more hands on approach to
reforms in the water sector. Earlier in
his position as Chief Minister, Kejriwal
had initiated water reforms by reducing
the tariff for household water services
(Pandey 2015). The tariff structure in
2015 included up to 20 kiloliters of free
water with nominal charges for households.
The CM called this lifeline water
that should be provided to all residents.
After a short time, however, the DJB
and others protested that the city could
not afford such a gracious provision
and the volumetric rate was set at a low
rate to recover at least some revenue for
households using less than 20 kiloliter
a month.
The New Delhi Municipal Council
region consumes around 125 million
liters per day (mld) of potable water,
120 mld of which it buys from the DJB
for around Rs. 15 a kiloliter. Bore wells
and rainwater harvesting make up the
rest of the need. The estimated cost to
procure groundwater is around Rs. 10
a kiloliter. The NDMC then distributes
the 125 mld of water purchased from
the DJB through its pipe grids and by
water tankers to nonpiped areas. It is
sold according to a revised rate scheme
that gives the first 20 kiloliters of water
at the rate of 3.45 per kiloliters with
scaled rates above that. 18 These household
uses are therefore heavily subsidized
and the NDMC must earn higher
rates from big users if it wants to recoup
its costs. About 10% of the NDMC’s water
budget is used for maintenance of
the city gardens and for other beautification
structures such as fountains and
lakes. This also has no user fees associated
with it, so the cost is covered by the
NDMC directly.
In the area controlled by the New
Delhi Municipal Council, or Lutyen’s
Delhi, a number of beautiful gardens
create an aesthetic ambiance for the
capital. The New Delhi Municipal
Council uses about 80 mld of water to
maintain around 8,000 parks; until recently,
this need has been supplied by
a small amount of NDMC “pure” water
and the rest from groundwater and
treated wastewater from the Okhla STP.
The DJB estimates that the total water
treated at its STPs is about 455 million
gallons a day (mgd) of which they
claim to provide 142 mgd (or 645 mld)
of treated water for horticulture and irrigation
across the Delhi metropolitan
region. 19 While it is difficult to verify
whether this treated water is actually
107