Surface water for Ludhiana, Amritsar and Patiala soon

To check the rapid decline and deterioration of groundwater, Punjab government would switch to surface water (Canal water) based water supply for three major cities – Ludhiana, Amritsar and Patiala.

Disclosing this on Saturday, the local government minister, Navjot Singh Sidhu said detailed proposals have been made for using canal water and provide treated potable water supply in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Patiala with the study report concerning Jalandhar is also in the pipeline.

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The minister further elaborated that considering the huge investment requirements, the Punjab Government had approached the Union Government for arranging the funds through External Funding Agencies such as World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), had accorded the technical clearance of all the three water supply schemes in the months of April 2018 and further forwarded it to Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Union ministry of Finance.

“A meeting was held today in the office of DEA, Ministry of Finance wherein, In Principle, approval has been granted to the proposed Surface water based water supply schemes for all the three cities,” Sidhu said.

He said the Union government will now send the proposal to World Bank for Ludhiana and Amritsar and to ADB for Patiala, for the assistance and fund allocations.

The total cost pertaining to the implementation of the project in the three cities is Rs 3508.1 Crore. The process of approvals and sanctioning of Loan from lending agencies and further selection of contractor is expected to be completed with 12-14 month, after which the works are expected to start on ground.

Divulging more, the minister said that the drinking water supply system of major – Amritsar, Ludhiana and Patiala – is based on groundwater which has declined at an alarming rate in last three-four years.

The report mentions that the extraction of groundwater in these cities is 150 percent more than the net groundwater availability, and therefore, these areas have been declared in “dark zone’’ category.