A network of underground water pipes and storage tanks will be set up across several wards of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC), off VIP Road, and in parts of Rajarhat, a civic official said..
Places like Kestopur, Baguiati, Arjunpur, Narayantala, Gouranganagar, Atghara, Dashadrone and several other places in Rajarhat are still dependent on tube wells and borewells, the official said.
The water pipeline project will cover these areas, some of which were earlier a part of the Rajarhat-Gopalpur Municipality, and provide filtered water to stop their dependency on underground water, he added.
The project will also cover some areas in Salt Lake and Mahisbathan I and II gram panchayats that are under the BMC’s jurisdiction.
A senior official of the BMC’s water supply department said that they are going to set up a 32km-long water supply and distribution network in the first phase of the project that will cover over 40,000 houses across its five Wards off the VIP Road.
“This is going to be the first phase of the project. In the later phases, the water supply network will cover more than two lakh houses,” said the
official.
According to the official, the water will be supplied from the New Town water treatment plant near Nazrul Tirtha.
“Storage tanks are being set up in Mahisbathan as part of the project,” another BMC official said.
The water supply pipes will be of different sizes and will be placed in the next few months, he added.
According to the official, in the first phase 40,432 houses in Wards 22 to 26 — covering large areas of Kestopur,
Baguiati and adjoining places — will be connected with the water distribution network under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme.
The scheme focuses on development of basic infrastructure, in the selected cities and towns, in the sectors of water supply; sewerage and septage management; storm water drainage; green spaces and parks; and non-motorised urban transport.
Underground water reservoirs will also be set up to store the filtered water. The reservoirs will likely to be set up in the BMC Wards 28, 35 and 36, which cover the Bheri areas bordering the East Kolkata Wetlands behind Sector V in Salt Lake.
“A 36.3km-long clear water distribution network system will come up here,” said a BMC official.
The corporation will next develop the basic infrastructure to set up distribution lines for filtered water in
BMC Wards 1 to 21, covering a large area of Baguiati, Kaikhali and Tegharia in the next phase.
For this, the preliminary survey has been completed and a detailed report has been placed before the AMRUT scheme mission.
“Our aim is to supply treated surface water that is iron free and free from all major forms of bacteria to all houses across all 41 Wards of the BMC. Work is on at full swing and we expect to finish by this year,” said Tulsi Sinha Roy, the mayoral council member in charge of water supply at the BMC.
