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<\/p>\n New Delhi
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Ravinder Kumar wades through ankle-deep sludge every day to leave his home in Sharma Enclave in northwest Delhi \u2013 yet inside the brick tenement, he does not have a drop to drink.\n <\/p>\n
\n Surrounded by filth, the 55-year-old twists his plastic taps regularly, hoping for relief.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWater comes once every three days, and even then, you only get clean water for an hour,\u201d the father of three told CNN on Monday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to bathe. The water is black at times. We wash once every four or five days.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Kumar is one of millions of residents in the Indian capital suffering sporadic water shortages due to rising ammonia levels in the Yamuna River that last week forced six of the city\u2019s nine major water plants to shut down.\n <\/p>\n
\n Water from the Yamuna \u2013 considered sacred and worshipped by millions \u2013 has become so polluted by ammonia from industrial waste that water plants have been unable to treat it.\n <\/p>\n
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\n In this city of 20 million people, the Delhi Water Board said last Thursday that 43 neighborhoods \u2013 home to about two million people \u2013 had been affected by water shortages.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN reached out to resident welfare associations in all 43 neighborhoods on Tuesday, and of those, 10 \u2013 representing more than 600,000 people \u2013 told CNN they\u2019d received no water for days.\n <\/p>\n
\n Others said it was turned off for no more than a day, and some said the water was still available but at a reduced level.\n <\/p>\n
\n The board told CNN supplies were restored two days later \u2013 on January 24. However, earlier this week, some residents told CNN they still didn\u2019t have a reliable supply.\n <\/p>\n
\n When CNN visited Sharma Enclave on Friday, some residents were using water they\u2019d stored when taps flowed for a short time on Thursday. The water was yellow and smelled like rotting eggs. They told CNN they didn\u2019t expect any new supplies until Sunday as water is brought every three days.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEveryone\u2019s health is deteriorating,\u201d said Shashi Bala, who lives in the neighborhood. \u201cEverything is dirty here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN has contacted the Delhi chief minister\u2019s office and the Haryana state government for comment regarding the high pollution levels in the Yamuna River and the consequent water shortage, but received no response.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Yamuna River flows south from a glacier in the Himalayas for 855 miles (1,376 kilometers) through several Indian states.\n <\/p>\n
\n Delhi was designed around its banks in the 17th century, when the river fed the canals that cooled royal palaces.\n <\/p>\n
\n Today, the Yamuna serves as the backbone of Delhi\u2019s water infrastructure, providing roughly 40% of the capital\u2019s supply. But for decades, sections of it have been plagued by the dumping of toxic chemicals and untreated sewage.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Though only 2% of the river\u2019s length flows through the capital, Delhi contributes about 76% of its total pollution, according to a government monitoring committee.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Dissolved oxygen levels frequently plummet to zero, transforming the historic waterway into a septic drain that suffocates aquatic life.\n <\/p>\n \n The most visible sign of this decay is the toxic white foam that now coats the surface, a thick layer of sewage and industrial waste that has formed over sections of the river.\n <\/p>\n \n Activists descended on the riverbanks last Sunday for a clean-up. For hours, they pulled discarded clothes, plastic waste, and submerged religious idols from the river\u2019s murky depths.\n <\/p>\n \n The pungent fumes from the foam engulfed the air as activists waded through the toxic water. At one point, they attempted to stop an individual from immersing an idol into the banks and polluting it further.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDelhi became a city because the Yamuna flowed,\u201d said one volunteer Pankaj Kumar, no relation to Ravinder Kumar, who said he knows that removing the debris won\u2019t rid the river of its worst ailment \u2013 industrial toxins.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe have finished this river,\u201d Kumar said.\n <\/p>\n \n Delhi\u2019s water crisis is compounded by its chaotic growth.\n <\/p>\n \n Unplanned urbanization has left millions living in unauthorized colonies off the grid, lacking essential pipelines or drainage, while the absence of sewage management allows waste to seep into the soil, also poisoning the city\u2019s groundwater reserves, according to<\/a> a 2022 study of heavy metal pollution in Delhi\u2019s groundwater.\n <\/p>\n \n Mismanagement at a construction site near Ravinder Kumar\u2019s home, combined with garbage-choked drains, has inundated Sharma Colony, a low-income neighborhood, leaving its narrow alleys flowing with stagnant wastewater.\n <\/p>\n \n Bala\u2019s home was flooded with dirty water for six months as a result, making her family sick. The 70-year-old grandmother used to wade through the filth to leave her home, but she said she was forced to stop after spraining her ankle on the debris hidden in the muddy water.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOne of my sons is disabled,\u201d she said. \u201cHis leg doesn\u2019t work. We\u2019re all just stressed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n To add to her worry, the taps in her small home were dry for three days straight.\n <\/p>\n \n When the water returned last Monday, it was dirty, but she said she had no choice but to use it for washing \u2013 clothes had been piled up for a week \u2013 even though it irritates her skin.\n <\/p>\n \n Bala can\u2019t go out to buy clean water, because the bottles are too heavy to carry home. Her son can\u2019t either due to his disability.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy neighbors have helped a lot. If it wasn\u2019t for them, we would have had no water to drink,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n Of the dirty water, the Delhi Water Board told CNN Friday that less than 1% of areas in Delhi reported \u201ctemporary water quality issues, mainly due to illegal booster pumps and unauthorized connections that disturb pipeline pressure,\u201d and that it was working to restore normal supply in those areas.\n <\/p>\n \n Delhi\u2019s water supply has long been an issue, and in 1993 the government of the day launched the Yamuna Action Plan, a clean-up strategy intended to overhaul the city\u2019s sewage treatment. But millions of rupees and more than three decades later, experts say the river remains a toxic drain.\n <\/p>\n![\"Pankaj](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img-7563-20260128153401304.jpg\")
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