Water plant for plains, push to hills

Siliguri, Aug. 21: The foundation for a water supply plant that will benefit more than 7 lakh people in Siliguri will be laid after the Pujas by the chief minister, PHE minister Subrata Mukherjee today said.

The minister said the government was also hoping to complete the Rs 55-crore Balasun water project for Darjeeling town within the same time frame.

The site of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation project will be at Fulbari where another water purifying plant using the Mahananda as its source already exists. Under the new Rs 300-crore project, water will be drawn from the Teesta in Gajoldoba, 30km from here, and sent to Fulbari for treatment.

The target is to distribute 135 litres of water to each person everyday. At present, the supply is around 70 litre.

“The water will be sourced from the Teesta in Gajaldoba. From there, it will be taken to Fulbari, treated and then distributed across SMC areas,” the minister told journalists today. Earlier, he had a meeting with north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb, Siliguri MLA R.N. Bhattacharya, mayor Gangotri Dutta and PHE and SMC officials.

“We expect the project report in 15 days, and after that, we will jointly hold a meeting in Calcutta. With the consent of the chief minister, necessary work will be started and its foundation stone for the plant will be laid by the chief minister after the Durga Puja,” he said.

Currently, the residents of SMC area get drinking water from the Mahananda, distributed after treatment at the Fulbari plant, 10km from here. The existing project started functioning in 2001 when the population of the civic area was around 3.5 lakh.

SMC sources said the need for a new plant was felt after the population in the civic area reached 7 lakh.

The projects cost will be shared by the SMC and the PHE, urban and municipal affairs and north Bengal development departments.

The PHE minister also said the department was considering another major drinking water project for Siliguri town keeping in mind its population in 2020.

“We are considering a similar project for Siliguri for the projected population of the town in 2020. We have already initiated the ground work and have visited a few areas in and around Siliguri,” Mukherjee said.

The minister also said his department is keen to start the Balasun drinking water project for the Darjeeling hills, the foundation stone for which was laid in 2005 by then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

“I will visit the plant at Balasun. We will see if we can start distributing drinking water, at least 70 litres per head per day, to the hill residents after the Pujas. The chief minister will inaugurate the project in the hills then, the same time she lays the foundation stone for the Fulbari plant,” the minister said.

Under the scheme, water will be pumped from the Balasun, about 30km from Darjeeling, over a distance of 12km in two phases. The water will be stored in a lake expected to be set up at Tiger Hill.

Currently, Darjeeling requires about 20-25 lakh gallons of water every day, but the municipality can provide only about 7-8 lakh gallons. The people of the hill town get potable water from the North and the South Senchal lakes. The lakes are supplied by water from the jhoras and from a third lake at Sindhap.

The Balasun project, which was the first major initiative to end the water shortage in the tourist town, was expected to be completed by November 2009 but the state government failed to meet the deadline. The scheme, first conceived in 1995-96, was put on the backburner for more than a decade before it was revived in 2006.

-TT