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TIMES CITY

Thirst for quota leaves city high and dry

New Delhi: Most areas innorth, central and west Delhistopped receiving piped-watersupply on Sunday evening, for-cing the city government to putin place emergency plans tostart tanker services. It also or-dered closure of all schools onMonday.

The shutdown of MunakCanal in Haryana due to pro-tests by Jats over reservationhas the capital in distress as amajor chunk of its water supp-ly comes from there. To makematters worse, protesters onSunday made another cut inthe canal, 100ft upstream fromMundera village, ensuring itwill take more time for normal-cy to return.

Army was belatedly sent tothe Munak Canal, but forced tomake a hasty retreat by angryprotesters. The Supreme Courtis scheduled to hear the Delhigovernment’s petition on theclosure at 10.30am on Monday.

“The canal gates remainedclosed till Sunday night andDelhi government received noformal communication fromeither Haryana or the Centre.In north, central and west Del-hi, there was no evening supplyon Sunday. Because Monday islikely to be worse, we have deci-ded to start 14 more tanker fil-ling points,” said DJB chair-person Kapil Mishra.

“Tanker filling will start ve-ry early on Monday and, betwe-en 6.30am and 7am, 423 tankerswill be dispatched to west Del-hi. For north and central Delhi,140 tankers have been deploy-ed. These will supply to desig-nated points and return for arefill. The process will conti-nue through the day.”

Mishra appealed to dis-coms to ensure there was no po-wer failure at Sonia Vihar andBhagirathi treatment plants,the only ones that are functio-nal, and at the filling points.

Senior officials, however,warned that there was only somuch that could be done withtankers. “We cannot match thepiped supply with tankers. Infact, there is also only a limitedamount that can be divertedfrom the command areas of the

two functional plants,” said asenior official.

He added, “DJB is relyingheavily on tubewells and usingwater from these to fill up tan-kers. Two-thirds of Delhi hasno water supply. Irrespective ofwhat DJB does, it is humanlyimpossible to meet the demandwith the 250-odd MGD waterthat we have at our disposal.”

To ensure there was suffici-ent water for Sunday, DJB re-duced supply to the affectedareas from Saturday night it-self. Whatever it managed to sa-ve was supplied through pipeson Sunday morning. By eve-ning, seven plants and all un-derground reservoirs were dry.

Even if protesters allow ac-cess to Munak Canal—wherenearly 8,000 people are statio-ned to prevent officials from ac-cessing it—it will take morethan 24 hours to restore supply.“The protesters have damagedthe canal gate and the opera-tion mechanism. Officials willfirst have to determine the ex-tent of damage and, then, repa-ir it. It will take another 16-17hours for the water to reach theunderground reservoirs fromwhere it will be pumped to colo-nies,” said another official.

The other problem is sincethe canal is now dry, the firstflood of water in it will be high-ly turbid. “This water cannotbe treated and will have to be al-lowed to flow out,” he added.

Jat Protests: Water Supply Hit, Schools ShutEVERY DROP COUNTS

No piped supply in evening to north, west and central Delhi on Sunday

700 water tankers

pressed into service

ACTION PLAN FOR MONDAY➤ 14 new tanker fi lling points

➤ 423 tankers to service west Delhi

➤ 140 tankers for north and central Delhi

Assessment of damage to canal and its repair

➤ Once protesters allow access, it’ll take over 24 hours for supply to resume➤ 3-4 hours for canal level to build up

➤ 3-4 hours for ponds to fi ll up in Delhi➤ 6-7 hours for plants to start production➤ 1-2 hours for reservoirs

to fi ll up and supply to reach areas➤ First fl ow of water likely to be turbid and will have to be drained

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chandigarh: In a face-off withpolice and paramilitary forceson Sunday, Jat protesters foiledtheir attempts to restore watersupply to Delhi from Munak ca-nal near Garhi Bindroli villagein Sonipat district where theagitators have laid siege sinceSaturday morning. Jats refusedto back off from the spot despitesecurity personnel bursting te-ar gas shells.

One person was killed in theclash between security forcesand protestors and another oneinjured.

The protesters had alleged-ly diverted water supply to adrain (diversion drain No 8) bydamaging the canal’s controlpanels near Garhi Bindroli onSaturday morning. Delhi recei-ves 1,085 cusecs of water fromHaryana through two waterchannels — Delhi branch ofWest Yamuna canal and Delhiparallel carrier channel knownas Munak Canal. The controlpanels to regulate the flow thro-ugh the two channels are situa-ted near Garhi Bindroli.

The Haryana governmenthad rushed paramilitary forcesand technical team of the irri-gation department to the villa-ge on Sunday to restore watersupply to Delhi. Sources saidwhen the personnel reached ne-ar the spot, only a few youthswere present. “However, soonaround 8,000 villagers, inclu-ding women, gathered and da-red the team to open fire onthem. The 300 paramilitary tro-ops were surrounded by the vil-lagers,” they said.

Initially, sources said, the of-ficials tried to convince the pro-testers to allow them to restorewater supply to Delhi. But thevillagers refused to relent. Thisled to bursting of tear gas shellsand firing in the air, but it hadlittle effect on the protesters.“The authorities then decidedto return from the spot to avoidconfrontation,”a source added.

Protestersensure statusquo at Munakcanal, 1 killed

Sukhbir.Siwach@timesgroup.com

Singhu Border: NeerajKhatri owns acres of landand a fleet of luxury cars, in-cluding BMWs and Mahind-ra Scorpio. He is agitating forthe OBC quota. But this resi-dent of Alipur village on thenorthern border of Haryanais not alone. Many Jats havejoined him and blocked theSinghu border, leading tocomplete crisis as far as pub-lic convenience and trans-portation on the crucial roadlinking Delhi to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh isconcerned.

Speaking to TOI, the pro-testers claimed that reserva-tion is needed to enable themto get admission to the bestcolleges and governmentjobs. “The children of SC/STand other communities cove-red under OBC quota get ad-mission with less than 50%marks, but our children don’tdespite scoring more than75%,” said Om Bir, a protes-ter. “If they cannot includeus in the OBC quota, the re-servation policy should beabolished to bring parityamong all communities,” headded.

Jats, who have traditio-nally been farmers, constitu-tes nearly 20-30% of Harya-na’s population. But most yo-uth in the state say they don’twant to do farming since it isnot profitable anymore. Also,many of them have sold theirland. “There are few goodschools and colleges in Hary-ana. We don’t get admissionin the top colleges of DelhiUniversity because of highcut-offs. Reservation wouldgive us a strong footing to bet-ter our academic standards,”said Ramesh Sura, an IASaspirant.

Surinder S Jodhka, pro-fessor of sociology at Jawa-harlal Nehru University(JNU), likened the Jat’s de-mand for inclusion in OBC

quota to that of the Patidarcommunity from Gujaratwho held similar protests in2015. “Both communities ha-ve some poor, but overall theycannot be termed as econo-mically backward. Still, theyare demanding quota due to a

sense of relative deprivation.This coincides with the wa-ning of the dominance ofJats in the region,” he said.

The community has agi-tated to be on the OBC list ofboth Centre and states sincethe Mandal Commission re-

port of 1991. In 2014, the Cong-ress-led state government in-cluded them and four othercastes under 10% SpeciallyBackward Class (SBC) quota,which was rejected by the Su-preme Court.

Many people TOI spoke toin Sonipat allege that Cong-ress is fuelling the protests.“The fact that BJP havingelected a non-Jat chief mini-ster and one of its MPs, RKSaini, constantly taking jibesat Jats on the issue of reser-vation has aggravated thematter,” said Dipak Sura, astudent.

The protests have not on-ly hit the locals but also tou-rists. “I came to Delhi to seeoff my cousin on Saturday.He has reached Australiaand joined office, but I’m yetto reach my hometown Lud-hiana which is 300km away,”said Amarjeet Singh, a com-muter. Sabir Kaur and her fa-mily, including an infant,walked nearly 20 kilometresfrom Panipat to Alipur bor-der to catch a flight to the USon Monday.

‘Rich’ Jats want reservation tobring parity in education, jobs

ANARCHY: Sabir Kaur and herfamily (top) walked nearly20 kilometres from Panipat tocatch a flight to the US as Jatsblocked roads with their SUVs

Photos: Rajesh Mehta, Indranil DasDurgeshNandan.Jha@timesgroup.com

rely on water supply from DJB.If no solution is found soon, wedon’t know what we will do,”said GS Bali, RWA president ofDDA housing society in Pash-chim Vihar.

Shopkeepers have startedstocking extra water cans tohelp residents fight the crisis. SK Anand, president of MarketAssociation of Gole Market incentral Delhi, said: “We don’tknow when normalcy will berestored and, so, we are stock-ing extra cans.”

Another shopkeeper in Go-le market, however, said therewere fears that even the supplyof water cans might be affectedby the protests as these largelycome from Gurgaon and Noida.

Residents of east and southDelhi are better off, but just.“This is not the way to protest.If they (protesters) block thecanals, the capital will come toa halt,” said Chetan Sharma,general secretary of Confede-ration of NCR Residents Welfa-re Association.

New Delhi: Taps are runningdry in west and central Delhi,forcing people to rely on watercans. Y K Anand, RWA presi-dent of Babar Colony nearBengali market, said desspiterepeated requests tankers hadfailed to reach them. They wereusing mineral water, instead.

“We were caught unprepa-red. I hope the government co-mes out with a solution soon,”said Anand.

DDA housing flats areamong those affected the mostas they rely completely on go-vernment water supply. Areaslike Vikaspuri, Dwarka, andUttam Nagar have the maxi-mum number of DDA flats, ho-using lakhs of people.

“There are 1,200 flats in ourhousing society and all of them

Empty pails,hands full forcentral andwest Delhi

QUOTA OF WOES

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The city, whichis almost entirely dependenton its neighbours for watersupply, probably felt suchscarcity for the first time.Other than firefighting a cri-sis in which 70% of the citywas without water, the go-vernment has also woken upto the need of having reser-ves that can last at least twodays.

There were two plans onthe table for creating a waterstore for Delhi, both ofwhich have been rejected.The government is now in-clined towards reviving lar-ge waterbodies to act as na-

tural reservoirs and promo-ting rainwater harvesting.“Delhi needs a holding sy-stem and the best method forthat at present is revival ofmajor lakes like Bhalsawa,Sanjay Jheel and Najafgarh.In times of extreme crisis,like the present situation,we need a parallel systemthat will last at least a coupleof days,” said a senior go-vernment official.

Water activist ManojMishra, who supports theplan for revival of waterbo-dies, has questioned whyDelhi’s supply from Harya-na comes through a canaland not directly through theriver. “The problem has star-

vernment involved pum-ping excess monsoon flow tothe Bhatti Mines area whereit could be stored in the seve-ral pits.

Sources said the highcosts involved in pumpingthis water to the pits madethe proposal highly imprac-tical. There was anotherplan to treat about 40 milliongallons per day of water totertiary level and release itinto the raw water at Pallafrom where it would be ta-ken to treatment plants. Ho-wever, Haryana and UP rai-sed objections to this plan,threatening to reduce Del-hi’s supply if any interven-tion was made at Palla.

hi’s supply should be allo-wed to come through the ri-ver while its share in the Sat-luj water should also be di-verted through drain 8 to theriver,” he said.

Mishra also proposedthat instead of creating a re-servoir on the river at Palla,which is what the govern-ment had originally propo-sed, it should create reservo-irs off the river. “The go-vernment has sufficientland at Palla for creation ofthese lakes and some excessmonsoon flow can be diver-ted to these,” he added.

The last proposal for cre-ation of reservoirs whichhas been rejected by the go-

ted because Delhi’s supply isbeing directed through the-se canals.

At Hathnikund, Harya-na drains the river dry anddiverts its water to the Wes-tern Yamuna Canal, some ofit meant for Delhi and therest for Haryana. This canalruns parallel to the river.What is its point then? Del-

Latest crisis makes case for lakes’ revivalTwo plans to createwater stores have beenrejected. The govern-ment is now inclinedtowards reviving large waterbodies to act asnatural reservoirs

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Gurgaon: After three days ofviolent protests by Jats deman-ding OBC status across Harya-na, Gurgaon is likely to get so-me respite from Monday. Jat le-aders of the city broke rankswith those of the rest of the sta-te to withdraw their stir.

Late in the evening, Gurga-on's Jat leaders met deputycommissioner T L Satyapra-kash and agreed to call off theprotest for now. Sources revea-led they’ll decide on their futu-re course of action after a Jatdelegation visits Chandigarhto meet Haryana officials soon.

“We are confident of nor-malcy. All Jat leaders acrossparty lines have agreed to with-draw protests. All industrial es-tablishments may open andoperate,” Satyaprakash said.

Amember of the delegationtold TOI they are giving a chan-ce to the government to fulfil itspromise. “We’ve been assuredby home minister Rajnath Si-ngh that Jats will be included inthe OBC quota. We have faith in

the government and will waitout the budget session tillMarch 17, when they promisedto table the bill. Protests will re-sume if they backtrack,” saidAjit Kataria, a Jat leader.

The agitation will continueacross the state, though. Sour-

ces revealed that despite askingfor written assurance, theUnion home minister only gaveverbal pledge “We also askedfor BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini’ssuspension for his negative re-marks about the Jat demand.The minister said Saini has be-en given notice and asked us towait for a few days,” said amember of the committee thatmet Rajnath Singh.

Respite for Ggnas stir called off

FACE-OFF: A protest near Alipur

Rajesh Mehta

Chetna.Choudhry@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Dhansingh Bhad-le has the responsibility of get-ting back 17 people to their na-tive village in Barwani districtof Indore, Madhya Pradesh.The 52-year-old came to attendareligious function at RamlilaMaidan on Tuesday, but hasbeen stranded at New Delhi ra-ilway station since Saturdayevening along with his group,which includes nine women,as all trains to his destinationremain cancelled.

Every time Bhadle gets upto check for a train leaving to-wards Indore the group beco-mes hopeful that their waithas come to an end. “The trainwe came to board last night ne-ver arrived. Our food and wa-ter stock has finished. I havebeen checking for unreservedtrains as getting reservationfor 17 people within such ashort time is not possible. Wehaven’t even been refunded forour cancelled tickets yet,”Bhadle said.

Lakhs of other passengersshare Bhadle’s predicament asservices of trains going towa-rds Mumbai were terminatedafter protesters blocked Delhi-

Palwal-Mathura stretch.Nazeer (32) and his brother

came to Delhi from Jalandharalong with their families for aweekend getaway. “Now thatour train has been cancelled, Ihave been looking for a hotel. Ican’t let my wife and childrensleep on the platform,” he said.

On Sunday, 1,050 trains we-re affected by the Jat protests,800 of which were cancelled

to run unreserved trains to cle-ar the rush,” said Neeraj Shar-ma, chief public relations offi-cer, Northern Railways.

Disruption was reportedfrom most sections of Delhi di-vision, including Jind, Hisar,Rohtak, Kurukshetra and Pal-wal by Sunday evening. Shar-ma said 12 stations were burnton Sunday and tracks have be-en damaged at some places.

and 200 diverted. Senior rail-way officials said over 300 fre-ight trains were also hit. Thedisruption has caused a loss ofover Rs 500 crore to the railwa-ys in the past two days.

“The busiest division ofNorthern Railways, Delhi, hasbeen the worst hit. Of the 800cancelled trains, most eitherpass through or originate/ter-minate here. We have decided

Unreserved trains for stuck passengers

STRANDED: Dhansingh Bhadle and 17 others had come to attend a religious function in the capital

Piyal BhattacharjeeAnvit.Srivastava@timesgroup.com

We’ve to attend a wedding,

but are waiting here since the morning as our train was cancelled. We can’t afford air travel—RAMVEER | TRAVELLING TO PUNJAB

Our train was scheduled to depart at 2.50pm on Sunday,

but was cancelled. I have three women and two kids with me, and road

travel doesn’t seem to be a safe option

—PREMCHAND | TRAVELLINGTO AMBALA

I was to board Jan Sewa Express that leaves at 1pm. I have been waiting since then

—MUNNA (29)| TRAVELLING TO SURAT

Most trains go via Panipat, which means a

lot of people are stranded here. I’m looking at road

travel options now—SUBHASH (26)

| TRAVELLING TO ODISHA

TRAVEL TRAVAILS

New Delhi: The governmentand agricultural produce mar-ket committees on Sunday at-tempted to quell fears of a risein prices of fruits and vegetab-les due to the blockade in Hary-ana. “Delhi is getting extreme-ly limited supplies from Hary-ana or through the state at pre-sent. In fact, supplies headedfor Haryana are stuck at theborder which has resulted in asurplus in Delhi,” said Mahen-dar Sanpal, chairman (allot-ment committee) APMC.

The only food item that co-uld see a rise in price is poultry.

“So far, there is no impact on fo-od prices in Delhi and it is un-likely that fruits and vegetab-les will become expensive. The-re could be some impact on po-ultry prices at a later date. WithBJP having promised a specialsession on reservation, theprotests may be called off asearly as Monday in which caseprices will remain under cont-rol,” said an official.

Supply from Haryana is ex-pected to start from April. “So-me trucks do come from Hary-ana but there are alternativeroutes through UP etc and hen-ce supply has not been affec-ted,” said an APMC official.

‘Poultry prices mayrise, veggies not hit’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

* THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI | MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2016

9, 10 & 21

Gurgaon could be staring ata water crisis, after

protesters in Mukhaherademanding Jat reservationsvandalised the Gurgaon watersupply channel on Sunday,and shut down the pumphouse, cutting the city’s watersupply to almost half. If thechannel is not restoredquickly, water supply couldget affected from Monday. TNN

Gurgaon supplychannel vandalised