Amritsar to get canal water supply

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 9

The state government has asked the Municipal Corporation (MC) to make arrangements to provide canal-based surface water to residents to address the water crisis and contamination issues. Following the recommendation of the government, the MC General House decided to collect water sewer bill from the residents to bear the cost for this project.

A proposal was passed in the recent General House meeting of the MC to implement the state government’s water tariff policy in the city. After the implementation of water tariff policy, the MC would be able to fix and revise the water tariff.

As per the proposal, the MC would install water meters to measure the consumption of every household and commercial unit. The bills would be prepared as per the water usage.

The MC officials proposed that the tariffs would be fixed by the civic body and it can be revised like power tariffs. The MC would constitute a high level committee to fix and revise the water tariffs. It would also set-up a water meter testing lab. As per the proposal, the MC will outsource the staff to implement the water traffic policy.

Though the General House gave nod to the proposal without any discussion but it was not clear that the new tariffs would be implemented after providing canal-based water or before the execution of project.

As per the previous estimates, it requires Rs 600 crore for extracting water from canal and its treatment. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had announced the World Bank-aided project to provide canal-based drinking water supply in the city in August 2017. Earlier, former CM Parksah Singh Badal had proposed the same plan.

According to the government’s plan, the surface water scheme will replace the existing groundwater supply, thus addressing the serious concern of the region which is facing groundwater depletion and cases of vector-borne diseases. Earlier in the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party regime, the MC had sent a detailed report on the project to the World Bank and the state government, but the government dropped the plan.