Sonia Vihar project's fate hangs in balance

Will Delhi ever get water from the Sonia Vihar project or is it a public-private venture destined to be doomed?

Warning the issue may become another major inter-state dispute, a Union water resources ministry study says "it will blow up into a major controversy if the plant and the pipeline are completed but water is not made available to make them functional. It will then be an inter-state dispute involving Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal."

The project was commissioned in 2000, shortly before the creation of Uttaranchal. Uttaranchal officials argue that the then Uttar Pradesh government had agreed to provide water for the Delhi project in haste and later the new province did not have the time to look into the issue.

Availability of water in the Tehri dam and subsequently the Ganga basin will play an important role in deciding the fate of the Sonia Vihar project, the study says. But farmers in the Indo-Gangetic region are apprehensive that supply of water to Delhi for drinking purpose will deprive them of an important source for cultivation.

While on one hand, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh have to cater to the needs of the farmers and generate hydroelecricity, Delhi cannot fully meet the water requirements of its populace unless it has a fresh new source of raw water, it says.

The Delhi Jal Board says the project was taken up in the first place on the understanding that the Tehri dam will be its source of raw material and Uttaranchal cannot back out now that the treatment plant and pipeline are nearing completion.

The project has already got delayed by a year and is unlikely to take off till the next monsoon. Even if Uttaranchal agrees to fall in line in the event of surplus water in the Tehri dam, the project will always be at the mercy of supplies which may be snapped anytime.

The study, which also gives an overview of Delhi's water problems, puts the project in the wider perspective of public-private participation in such schemes. It further looks into the technological feasibility of the project.

At a time when disinvestment of public sector undertakings have come under severe criticism, it gives both the pros and cons of involving the private sector in water projects.

Many non-government organisations are apparently wrong when they argue that water is being privatised and foreign companies are going to make money by selling to "us our own water". In reality, only the services of processing and supplying of water are being privatised and not the rivers, the study argues.

A study, under the auspices of the Union water resources ministry, has sought to provide an answer to the complex issue involving the government, farmers, non-government organisations and the multinational company Suez-Degremont, entrusted with completing the project.