Arvind Kejriwal commissions Bawana water treatment plant

NEW DELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today commissioned the Bawana Water Treatment Plant and Underground Reservoir in Outer Delhi's Bawana and, while at it, also provided an on-the-spot solution for the drinking water problem of a nearby village.

The Bawana plant will serve the Sultanpur and Narela areas, among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Kejriwal said that although completed 12 years ago, the plant could not become fully operational due to the lack of political will.

" AAP has done in two months (commissioning the plant) what BJP and Congress couldn't in 12 years," he said.

At the function to mark the commissioning of the plant, Kejriwal also pitched in with a remedy for the people of a nearby village who complained they were not getting clean drinking water.

As Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia rose to speak, residents of Sanop village waved bottles of dirty water and raised slogans that they do not have access to potable water.

When Kejriwal sought to intervene, the protesters told him that a proposed iron treatment plant in their area was yet to be completed and they were facing a severe drinking water problem in the meantime.

The chief minister thereupon instructed Delhi Jal Board officials to see to it that drinking water is supplied to the village from the Bawana plant within 10 days as a stop-gap arrangement until the local water treatment plant becomes operational.

Meanwhile, local BJP MP Udit Raj, a guest at the event who arrived almost one hour late, faced protests by locals who accused him of not visiting them when their crops were damaged by unseasonal rain.

"This is anarchy, they should have waited for me as I was stuck in a meeting. These people who are protesting against me are AAP supporters and this is politically motivated," Raj told reporters. He also maintained that his name should have been inscribed at the top of the inauguration stone.