Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal will target Delhi Jal Board (DJB) in his next expose on Thursday. In the press conference which is scheduled for 2pm in New Delhi, Kejriwal will highlight corruption in the Jal Board which, he says, has resulted in the rise in water tariff in the national capital over the last decade.
With an eye on assembly elections by the end of this year, Kejriwal and his aides have been raising the issue of rising prices of power and water in their public meetings in various of parts of the city.
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“We have documents which show at least Rs 10,000 crore DJB scam,” said Kejriwal in a public meeting in the Shastri Nagar area in North West Delhi on Tuesday.
AAP claims that the water tariff in Delhi has increased 18 times in the last eight years because the Delhi Jal Board is hand in glove with foreign companies running water treatment plants in Sonia Vihar and Nagloi areas.
AAP says government records show that the Sonia Vihar water treatment plant gets nine million gallons of untreated water per day. More than 100 million gallon clean water is discharged from this plant everyday. “Inflated bills are made to make payments to a French company ‘Degremont’ which is running the treatment plant,” says statement by AAP.
A French firm called Veolia is responsible for water collection, treatment and distribution at Nagloi plant. DJB gives Veolia Rs 14 for every kilo liter of water treated when previously the Board DJB used to spend Rs 5 per kilo liter for the same process.
