Delhi police patrol areas with Jal Board water pipelines to secure against theft, damage

New Delhi: Amid a water crisis in the national capital and a day after Delhi Water Minister Atishi wrote to city Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora requesting him to deploy police personnel to secure against theft and damage of water pipelines, Delhi Police officials on Monday inspected the Delhi Jal Board pipelines in Hazrat Nizamuddin area of South East Delhi.
"Basically, this Jal Board water pipeline is properly patrolled here. We keep a proper watch on the Jal Board water pipeline that there should not be any leakage, there should not be any defect in it," Sub Inspector ML Meena of Hazrat Nizamuddin PS told ANI.
Earlier on Sunday, Delhi police officials inspected the Jal Board pipelines in the Yamuna Khadar area of northeast Delhi and said that there were no leakages.
Delhi Water Minister in her letter to Delhi Police Commissioner said, "I am writing to request deployment of police personnel to patrol and protect our major pipelines for the next 15 days to stop miscreants or people with ulterior motives from tampering with water pipelines which have now become Delhi's lifelines. At this juncture, any foul play and sabotage will worsen the already difficult water shortage being faced by the people of Delhi."
The letter further added, "Delhi Jal Board has patrolling teams for our main water distribution network that carries raw water to the Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) and then from our WTPs to our main underground reservoirs in different parts of the city. In addition, we have deployed teams under the supervision of ADMs to support in this work."
The Aam Aadmi Party leader said the ground patrolling team found water supply pipelines were damaged in some places.
"Yesterday, our ground patrolling team reported a major leakage in our South Delhi Rising Mains, the main water pipeline that carries water from Sonia Vihar WTP to South Delhi. This was near the DTL substation in Garhi Medhu. Our patrolling team found that several large 375 mm bolts and one 12-inch bolt had been cut from the pipeline, causing the leakage- The fact that several large bolts had been cut seems to indicate foul play and sabotage," she said in a letter.