Noida’s Ganga water supply will be suspended for about 25 days from October 21 because of annual cleaning of the Upper Ganga Canal, while Greater Noida East could face reduced supply during the Diwali period. Authorities are preparing tube wells, reni wells and water tankers as alternatives, but officials have warned that some areas may still experience shortages.
The Ganga water supplied to Noida reaches the city through Ghaziabad. According to Noida Authority officials cited in the report, the interruption is linked to the annual cleaning of the canal. The cleaning work is expected to continue for 12 days, but restoring supply to local sectors will take additional time after water is released into the canal and distribution network.
The Noida Authority plans to repair tube wells over the next 12 days and restore reni wells so they can be operated at higher capacity if required. Noida Authority water department general manager RP Singh said the alternative sources would be run at their full capacity during the shutdown. He also cautioned that some localities could still face water shortages, with tankers to be deployed wherever necessary.
The authority said it has 40 more operational tube wells than it had last year. It also expects to draw more than 100 million litres per day from reni wells. These sources are intended to help maintain drinking-water availability while the Ganga supply remains suspended.
The disruption is expected to be particularly significant in Greater Noida East, where around 90 per cent of water supply to housing societies depends on Ganga water, according to the report. Greater Noida receives around 210 million litres of water daily, of which approximately 80 million litres comes from the Ganga canal.
For Greater Noida, canal water is scheduled to be stopped from midnight on October 20. The authority currently has a reserve sufficient for only two days, after which it may have to depend more heavily on groundwater. The report states that this could result in the supply of water with higher total dissolved solids, or TDS levels.
Water supply to Greater Noida is expected to resume after water is released into the canal on the night of November 7. However, it may take another two to three days for the water to reach residential sectors through the pipeline network. With Diwali falling on November 8, the report indicates that supply may remain affected during the festival.
The areas identified as most likely to face difficulties include Surajpur, Alpha, Beta and Gamma sectors, Swarn Nagri, Jaypee Greens, Omicron, Omega and Knowledge Park. Greater Noida’s Ganga water senior manager Chet Ram Singh said the authority had written to the Irrigation Department requesting that the canal cleaning be scheduled after Diwali. Until a change is made, the authority plans to increase tube-well operations to maintain supply.
