more-in In the span of one year, 2.12% more households were added to the Delhi Jal Board’s (DJB) piped water network, the Economic Survey of Delhi 2017-18 has revealed. The report said that 83.42% of all households had access to piped water in 2016. This was up from 81.30% in 2015. In 2016, the economic survey had showed that over 16% of households did not have access to piped water. In the sewage sector, the DJB’s utilisation of its installed treatment capacity went down from 74% as on March 31, 2016, according to the Economic Survey 2016-2017, to 69% on March 31, 2017, according to the 2017-2018 survey. “The sewerage treatment plants are not functioning up to their optimum level due to various reasons such as low flow of sewage to STPs, trunk and peripheral sewer lines still to be connected to these STPs, rehabilitation of silted and settled trunk sewer lines yet to be completed, etc,” the survey stated. When it came to the finances of the DJB, the survey said that the water utility had continued to meet its operating expenses on its own since 2010-11. However after revenue surplus between 2012 and 2015, the DJB had revenue deficits in 2015-16, 2016-17 (revised estimate) and 2017-18 (budget estimate), the survey said. The Aam Aadmi Party government had started its free 20 kilolitres of water scheme in 2015. For this scheme, the government gave ?325.20 crore to the DJB to pay for this subsidy in 2016-17, the survey said.

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