Red Fort is a World Heritage Site. (Source: Express Photo) Red Fort is a World Heritage Site. (Source: Express Photo)

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) seem to have locked horns over the issue of water supply to Red Fort, after the DJB slapped a water bill of Rs 2 crore on the ASI.

According to sources in the DJB, the ASI had not paid water charges of Rs 96 lakh. “They have not paid water charges for a long time. As a result, the actual amount is Rs 96 lakh while the rest of the amount, Rs 1.04 crore, is surcharge,” a DJB official said.

Senior ASI officials confirmed they had received the water bill from the DJB. A senior officer told Newsline that the controversy over the water bill arose last year after the DJB stopped supplying water to Red Fort — one of the three World Heritage Sites in the city.

“Everything is inter-related. The ASI had not paid the bill last year because the DJB had stopped supplying water to Red Fort. By their own admission, DJB officials said the line supplying water to Red Fort had worn out and become unusable. The DJB had demanded Rs 14 lakh from ASI to replace the same — an amount which we submitted last year. Yet, the lines have still not been replaced with DJB citing tendering and other issues,” the ASI official said.

“How can the DJB not supply water to a World Heritage Site? Apart from Humayun’s Tomb and Qutub Minar, Red Fort is one monument that gets the highest footfall of domestic and foreign tourists daily. Water is a basic facility at such an important site. The DJB supplies water to Red Fort in a “bulk connection”. It is supposed to be a 24-hour water supply, and the pipelines are thicker than the normal ones. But what is the use of such worn-out pipes that cannot be used at all?” the official said.

The DJB, on the other hand, maintained that water supply to the heritage site has not been cut-off. Stating that repairing the internal pipelines at Red Fort was a different issue, a DJB official said, “Maintenance of these internal lines is generally the responsibility of the individual under whose name the bill is made. Since Red Fort is a heritage site, we took up the issue of repairing/replacing internal lines at a cost of Rs 15 lakh as a special concession. However, this case is separate from the payment of the water bill.”

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