Darjeeling drinking water project to take months to complete

DARJEELING, 24 FEB: The Darjeeling drinking water project, officially scheduled to be completed next month, would take months to complete, said the Darjeeling municipality chairman, Mr Amar Singh Rai. The statement stands at variance with the assurance given by public health engineering department officials who said the project would be completed within the scheduled time at a meting held at Writers’ Buildings in Kolkata recently. Mr Rai and Darjeeling MLA Trilok Dewan visited the drinking water project sites today. They slammed the PHE department for the sloth in the progress of the project implementation. They visited the intake point located at Balason and the intermediate point at College Valley on the outskirts of Darjeeling to judge the veracity of the PHE assurances. Mr Rai said the PHE officials would find it difficult to meet the deadline. “It looks impossible that the process of pumping water up to Sinchel Lake would be completed in a month. On the positive side, the work of laying the pipelines up to the lake has been completed. The second stage that involves pumping water from the intake point and then taking the same to the Sinchel Lake would take at least 4-6 months from now as the process is under construction,” he said. sns