Delhi, the host for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, cuts a sorry figure on its sanitation front with most of its sewer lines silted and not functioning, according to a UN report Thursday.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, a large proportion of Delhi's 5,600-km of feeder sewers are silted and less than 15 percent of the trunk sewer line is functioning.The city's 17 sewerage plants are woefully inadequate to process the waste produced by its around 15 million population. The plants can process less than half the waste produced and most of the plants operate far below capacity.
The end result is that less than half of the city's waste is processed by the sewerage plants before the filth is dumped into the already polluted Yamuna river.
'In some cities, coverage (sanitation area) rates are high but sewerage systems are in extreme disrepair. Delhi has many of the trappings of a developed country sanitation model but appearances belie some serious problems,' the report warns.
The report was released here by UNDP Representative Maxime Olson and Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz.
The annual UNDP's Human Development Report 2006 this year focuses on 'Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis' taking a critical look at a major factor in progress toward Millennium Development Goals.
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