Nod to canal-based water supply in Amritsar

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 23

Finally, the Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday approved the project to provide canal-based water supply to the city.

The project has been the long-pending demand of the residents as the city has been facing serious water crisis for the past few decades. Moreover, water depletion and groundwater contamination has made it tough for the civic body to meet the routine potable water demand from the residents. The Municipal Corporation spends a good amount on sinking of tube wells every year.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the lending arm of the World Bank Group, would finance 70 per cent of the cost and the rest would be borne by the Punjab Government. The decision to this effect was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh held through video conferencing on Wednesday.

Sandip Singh, academics, said: “The project was proposed in 2015 by the SAD-BJP government and the approval took five years to come. We welcome the move of the government as it is the need of the hour. It will also help to address the problem of water depletion in the region.”

Surabh Sharma, a resident said: “The canal-based 24X7 water supply is a much-needed project. The government should implement it at the earliest. Residents of the walled city and several other localities often receive contaminated water supply. The existing infrastructure is inadequate to meet the demand from city residents.”

The Punjab Government, in June 2018, requested the World Bank for support in implementing the 24X7 canal-based water supply project in the city. A pre-feasibility report was prepared by the World Bank in 2015, and updated in 2019, which pointed out the need to migrate from rapidly depleting and contaminated decentralised groundwater supply source to a centralized and treated surface water source.

The 40-acre land requirement for the construction of water treatment plants, along with treated water collection tanks and pumping stations close to the canals, has been met by acquiring land along the Upper Bari Doab Canal at Vallah village at a cost of Rs 36.40 crore. 

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