Supreme Court to hear on Monday Delhi govt's plea seeking additional water supply from neighbouring states

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is slated to hear on Monday the plea filed by the Delhi government seeking additional water supply from neighbouring states to address the water crisis in the national capital.

As per the cause list published on the website of the apex court, a bench of Justices P. K. Mishra and K. V. Viswanathan will take up the matter for hearing on June 3.

In its petition, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government demanded that the states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh be directed to release extra water for a month to address the extraordinary and excessive water demand of the city triggered due to a surge in summer temperature.

Meanwhile, Delhi Water Minister Atishi has written a letter to Haryana and Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers Nayab Singh Saini and Yogi Adityanath requesting additional release of water to the national capital so that Delhites may comfortably surpass the peak summers.

Earlier, Atishi had sought urgent intervention from the Centre on the issue of water shortage and apprised the Union Jal Shakti Minister that Haryana must immediately release Delhi's rightful share of water into the Yamuna River to bring the waters to the normal level.

"Delhi is heavily dependent on water from the Yamuna River to meet its day-to-day demand for water. However, in the last few days, there has been a drastic dip in the water levels at the Wazirabad Barrage as Haryana is not releasing the required amount of water in the Yamuna River. This has resulted in a massive crisis of water in the national capital," said Atishi in her letter to Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Thursday.

She added that the temperature in Delhi has touched almost 50 degrees Celsius, and this has further intensified the demand for water putting additional burden on the already strained demand-supply chain of potable drinking water in Delhi.