Drunk on water

TAKE just a tourist's passing measure of the vast leafy expanse that gives New Delhi its crowing distinction as one of the greenest capitals in the world and you'll know exactly where a full 10th of the Capital's water sinks. The 400,000 residents of the tiny 5 per cent area of Delhi that the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) services are perhaps the most spoilt water consumers in the country. In the main, Delhi's courtesies to embassies and the President's Estate are responsible for a situation that is difficult to reverse. Each of the 207 ha that the 50-odd

It's only tanking up

WITHOUT these 200 tankers - rusting and leaking ponderously - Delhi would be panting. And these dinosaurs come closest to the prices Delhi's people should actually be paying. While the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) charges Rs 250 for a tanker of 10 kl capacity, private tankers get anything between Rs 200 to Rs 400, depending on distance, the tanker's capacity, the season and how well-heeled the pleader is. Besides the grim possibility that municipal tankers

Squeezed to the last drop

UNDER the present dispensation, the three major water treatment plants at Hyderpur, Chandrawal and Wazirabad get 1410 mld from the Bhakra Nangal dam system and the Yamuna river.

Thrice dammed

DELHI'S future -to mix metaphors -is in the hands of three dams. But of Renuka, Kishau and Tehri, only the last is under construction; it should supply the city with 675 million litres daily (mld) feeding the proposed 630 mld treatment plant at Shahdara. But next century.

Waste more want more

DEAD drunk on its political clout, Delhi is blind to the fact that its water scarcity is directly proportional to its gargantuan wastage. At the peak of its "water crisis" in mid-January, Delhi's water consumption, at 215 Ipcd, remained 65 per cent higher than Bombay's.

Future tense

THIS is not a load of what you think it is. By the year 2001, the volume of sewage generated by Delhi is likely to top a mountainous 3,200 mId. The only way to flush it or purify it is with more water. And no one knows where that is going to come from, apart from one of the priorities of the city's Eighth Five Year Plan, which envisages making investments in future projects. Whatever that may mean. There has already been roundhouse criticism of the

Taking the stink out of urinals

A TECHNOLOGY to treat domestic sewage, in existence since the '60s, has been put to new use: treating and recycling wastewater from public urinals. Mukesh Khare of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi claims the rotating biological contactor (RBC) process can eliminate foul odour from the urinals, especially in the summers when there is a perpetual water shortage. Wastewater from urinals contains both organic matter -

Tainted dream

Fariburz Sahba, the Iranian architect who designed the, Baha'i Lotus Temple in New Delhi, is a sad man today. Dust and emissions from vehicles and industries around the temple are causing its marble exterior to peel off. Though the architect says the temple, made

Beware of the bindi

INDIAN women, watch out! Think twice before you place that innocent-looking, stick-on vermillion dot on your forehead. Or, before you slip your plastic purse into your blouse. At least that's the message from dermatologist R K Pandhi of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. Investigations by his team reveal an increased incidence of leucoderma - a progressive loss of skin pigmentation that results in white patches - in women

Killed by indifference

How does it feel to be told that if only your car had seat belts fitted, your 26-year-old son and 22-year-old daughter-in-law would be alive today? What would you do if you were told this? Would you bow down in acceptance before the Hindu priest when he said that it could not be otherwise, as it was destined to be so? It was destined that this couple, who had been married but nine months, would be out on the road between Alwar and Delhi at about 10 in the night.