Accounts from bastis in Shalimar Bagh highlight the everyday burden of water collection, with residents describing reduced supply hours, poor water quality and the strain of making multiple trips for household and drinking water.
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said water shortages worsen during heatwaves because “the water that is channelled gets evaporated.”
Experts warn that Delhi’s water crisis extends beyond heatwaves, pointing to ageing infrastructure, transmission losses and rising pressure on groundwater.
Poonam lives in a one-room house in GP Seva Basti in Shalimar Bagh. Her mornings begin with picking up buckets and marching to the nearest functioning community water tap, a routine she shares with many women and children in the neighbourhood as men prepare to leave for work.
She said it has been over a year since her section of the jhuggi cluster had access to running water.
GP Seva Basti, located in India’s capital, is home to more than 7,000 residents, according to locals. The JJ cluster appears to be stretched beyond capacity.
Amid the bustle, access to water remains a persistent challenge. According to the Delhi Shelter Board, the informal settlement comprises 1,246 households.
“Half of our days revolve around collecting water,” said Beena Devi, glancing at the stacks of large and small containers lined outside her small shop, just metres away from an open drain.
“This is where I wash clothes, I do my dishes, this is half of my world,” she said.
Locals said that while one half of the settlement receives running water, the rest depend on a few community taps scattered across the basti, where dirty sewage water often pools nearby. Outlook contacted Shailendra Khateek, Pradhan of GP Seva Basti, Shalimar Bagh, to confirm the claim, but received no response.
“There is no telling how much time it might take to get two buckets of water, it could take up to two hours,” Poonam said, adding that each tap is crowded by at least 50 people every day. Even the water she manages to collect is not always usable. Poonam pushed open the door to a small storeroom, revealing a lone bucket of water left undisturbed so that the sediments could settle at the bottom.
“Isn’t water a basic right?” Poonam asked.
Salman, another resident of the colony, said both the duration of water supply and the water pressure have declined over the last year. Earlier, water was supplied from 6:30 am to 8:30 am, but now Salman said the supply lasts for barely an hour.
On the outside of the JJ cluster is situated a newly installed water ATM.
“This is a first-of-its-kind big water ATM which will provide cold 30 litres per day of clean drinking RO water,” Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta declared on April 22.
Around eight water ATMs have been installed across the CM’s Shalimar Bagh assembly constituency as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative by Indian Oil Corporation.
Under the Heat Action Plan 2025, Delhi CM activated the disaster management machinery and proposed 3,000 cold water ATMs as part of collective measures to combat heat, DD News reported. Outlook contacted the Delhi Jal Board seeking details on the proposed water ATM installations, including timelines, maintenance, placement decisions and project costs, but did not receive a response.
As part of the grassroot level 2026 Heat Wave Action Plan, the Delhi government is installing over 1,900 water coolers and more than 11,000 cooling points across the city to combat severe heat, the Delhi CM announced on X.
Vaishali Upadhyay, who works with Greenpeace India as a Climate and Energy Campaigner, filed an RTI application to the Delhi Jal Board last month, seeking information on the installation of the proposed 1,900 water coolers and more than 11,000 cooling points across the city to tackle extreme heat and is yet to receive a response.
Upadhyay authored the ‘Water Access Audit Gaps, Costs and Beyond’ study, which aimed to understand the government’s plan to install 3,000 water ATMs to help bridge the gap for the availability of drinking water for Delhi’s residents, especially those living in informal settlements.
The 2025 study found that of the 500 households surveyed across 12 bastis, most relied on external sources of drinking water, of which, 21 per cent use water ATMs (only where they were installed).
The study also suggested that the Delhi government must revise its current plan and install at least 5,000 water ATMs, instead of the proposed 3000, and accelerate installations across public, residential, and commercial areas. “Special priority should be given to informal settlements.”
Bablu, the Pradhan at another JJ cluster named Ekta Camp AU-Block, welcomed the initiative by the Bharatiya Janata Party, and said that at least 400 people in the camp have been issued cards to access the water ATMs while 100 remain to be approved.
However, B. Paswan, a resident of the camp, said that although the water ATM is functional, he does not use it because the water is “boiling hot.” The camp is home to 366 households.
Residents said the issue extends beyond simply having access to a water ATM. It is also about how accessible its placement is in daily life.
Devi questioned how many times must she leave her corner shop unattended to collect water. “On top of filling buckets, should we then make another trip just to collect drinking water from the ATM? Why can’t the government repair the pipelines and provide running water instead?” she said, claiming that the government has installed these ATMs for their own publicity. “These Water ATMs are not helping us, they should ask us about what we want."
Her son, who recently finished his Master’s degree and is on a job hunt, said he worries about what will happen once he starts working. With his father already away for work, he fears his mother will be left to make repeated trips to the nearest community tap, which he described as “considerably far away” from their home.
Upadhyay said that there should be community participation in the placement of water ATMs. “The residents should be asked where the water ATMs should be installed so that people can access it better.”
Beena’s neighbour has accepted the water crisis as a part of her life. “Things were better under the previous government. They came to our homes, asked about our problems and actually implemented solutions, unlike the current government,” she claimed, requesting anonymity.
Salman, while walking across the narrow lanes of the basti, where sunlight struggles to reach the ground, pointed at the towers of buckets lined outside the tiny doorways and said it would be impossible to list all the problems residents face.
In the summers, they struggle to get enough water. Then comes monsoon and their homes are flooded with rainwater. “Living like this slowly takes away our dignity,” he said.
“We have people falling ill due to the heat.” Salman claimed. In a recent interview with Outlook, Delhi Health, Transport and IT Minister Pankaj Kumar Singh said that there is no long-term plan for a heatstroke since a heatstroke patient needs instant relief.
“Instant relief cannot be a long-term thing. If you were affected this year, it is not guaranteed you will [be affected] next year too.”
He added that “there is no long-term plan as such. What matters is that the patient gets immediate relief. Whether it is through cooling measures, hydration or emergency medical support, the focus is on stabilising the patient quickly.”
Laxmi, 40, carries containers weighing up to 20 kilograms several times a day — and that is on a good day, when she manages to secure enough water for her four children.
The daily burden has taken a physical toll. She said she is now on medication because of constant pain in her feet and back caused by years of carrying water.
“I have to take pills,” she said with a laugh. “What else can I do?”
Despite her efforts, there are days when life in her household comes to a halt. Without water, her children are unable to get ready for school or begin their day. On the worst days, the family depends on the kindness of neighbours to borrow enough water to manage.
Water, a basic need
Delhi’s CM recently gave a statement on the capital’s water crisis that made rounds on the internet. She explained that in the heat wave, “the water that is channelled gets evaporated, adding to shortage.”
Delhi depends on external and internal sources of water for its needs. As per Observer Research Foundation, its external sources include the upper Ganga canal. In the neighbouring state of Haryana, the sources comprise Western Yamuna Canal and Munak Canal. The third external source is Bhakra storage, situated in Himachal Pradesh.
As per the Central Ground Water Board, in 2023, the stage of groundwater extraction reached 99.13 per cent, indicating that nearly all of the groundwater considered safely available for use was extracted.
During the year, total annual groundwater recharge stood at 0.38 billion cubic metres (bcm), while 0.34 bcm was classified as extractable groundwater resources. Actual groundwater extraction was also recorded at 0.34 bcm, suggesting that water use remained close to the sustainable threshold despite improvements from earlier years of over-extraction.
S Masood Husain, ex-Chairman of the Central Water Commission said that only 20 per cent of Delhi’s water demands gets met by groundwater, the remaining 80 per cent of its supply is from surface water.
He said that water is a multi-dimensional issue in a cross-cutting sector. “Apart from the water resources engineering, it intermingles with social and economic aspects.”
Husain says India, an agriculture-based country, uses about 80 per cent of its total water resources for irrigation, and productivity is lower than in some comparable countries, such as China. While water is a state subject, Husain mentioned that the government must plan and present a budget that meets their needs.
As for domestic usage in big cities like Delhi, which he mentioned is a unique case, Husain stated that, even though water availability is adequate, there is a loss of water in the management system.
“The amount of water Delhi gets is higher compared to other European and American cities, but somehow, we have not been able to manage it in an efficient manner.”
With an ever-increasing population in the capital, the systems have to be upgraded, he said, mentioning that water gets lost during transmission, adding that even the pipelines are not upgraded, “they are leaking.”
India needs a complementary approach to develop water, by increasing the per capita storage, which in “our country is very, very low at 200 cubic metres per capita.”
Most of the water flows through quickly, he explains. Around 80 per cent of the country’s water availability comes in the form of rainfall during the monsoon, which lasts for roughly 90 days. If that water is not captured and stored, whether in large reservoirs, medium-sized storage systems or smaller local structures, much of it is lost.
Groundwater remains an important source, but it is also finite. India’s estimated ultimate groundwater potential stands at around 432 billion cubic metres, he says.
“Unless and until we have storage, we will not be able to manage water," he concludes.
