CM inaugurates Rs 525.85-cr water supply scheme for Jalandhar today

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 22

To check further depletion of groundwater and ensure round-the-clock drinking water supply to residents, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh will virtually inaugurate the much-touted Rs 525.85-crore surface water supply scheme tomorrow.

The scheme, which will be operated under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) programme, will involve water extraction from the Sutlej. Once the project is made functional, 400 of the 535 existing tubewells in the city will be rendered inoperative. The remaining will be used as a backup plan in case of any technical issue in the supply.

As per the current system, 535 tubewells are being operated for about nine hours a day and are digging out 32 crore litre of water from the water table. As per the estimates, the city requires just about 20 crore litre of water on a daily basis while the remaining 12 crore litre is wasted due to leakages and the faulty supply system.

Under the new system, there will be an online monitoring of the supply using the SCADA system. The system will generate alerts whenever there will be any leakage at any point in the channels. Less leakage will lead to reduction in the pressure on the STPs. Storage tanks and treatment plants will also be set up. The government is in the process of acquiring 70 acre near Adampur. A treatment plant will have a capacity to treat 275 million litre of water per day (MLD), which will be a sufficient requirement up to year 2036. The city will be divided into 37 pockets to channelise the water supply system.

The civic body is also planning to get the metered water supply policy started soon. Currently, houses built in less than 5 marla are exempted from making any payment for water usage. But once metres are installed, all houses will have to pay the requisite charges.

SE Satinder Kumar said the L&T company had already started a survey and the tubewells were being geo-tagged for online monitoring. Meanwhile, 13 projects that the Chief Minister will inaugurate on Saturday include those that have already been formally launched by party ministers, MP or MLAs and are underway.