Kejriwal's Finance Dept won't give funds for RO water in slums scheme

New Delhi: The Kejriwal government's ambitious plan to provide RO water in slums has hit a roadblock with the Finance Department expressing its "inability" to fulfil the extra monetary demand of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) for the scheme, official sources said on Wednesday.

The issue was discussed in a meeting, attended by Finance Minister Atishi, on Sunday, they said.

The DJB has sought Rs 1,800 crore from the Finance Department of the Delhi government to set up RO plants and 500 water ATMs as well as replacing old pipelines leading to contamination of water due to leakage, the sources said.

The two projects conceived recently involved capital expenditure for which no allocation was made in the budget for 2023-24 financial year. It has forced the DJB to seek extra funds to execute them, they said.

The sources claimed that the Finance Department has expressed its "inability" to fulfil the demand of the DJB for the extra fund.

Last week, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that his government has planned to install 500 water ATMs to provide drinking water using the Reverse Osmosis (RO) process to people in slums and other such densely-populated areas where it was unfeasible to lay down pipelines.

He had said every person will be provided with a card which will let them draw 20 litres of water per day from these ATMs free of cost.

Kejriwal in June had directed the DJB officials to address the problem of contamination of tap water supplied to households.

The DJB was allocated Rs 6,342 crore in 2023-24 budget by the Delhi government. Apart from water supply, the DJB also takes care of sewerage system and Yamuna cleaning in the city.