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Intermediate solution to water problem mooted

Staff Reporter

BERHAMPUR: Large tanks inside the city are being thought up to become intermediate solution to perennial drinking water crisis in the city.

Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Berhampur MP, Chandrasekhar Sahu convened a review meeting on Friday to take stock of drinking water supply in the city. This meeting was attended by local MLA R.CC.Patnaik, municipality chairperson Sulochana Swain, chief engineer of the Public Health & Engineering Department (PHED), Dilip Singh, Berhampur tehsildar, Sangram Panda among others.

Project report

At this meeting Mr Sahu proposed an intermediate plan to alleviate the drinking water crisis in the city till some long-term drinking water projects came up. He advised engineers to prepare a project report to renovate five large tanks on four corners and middle of the city to increase their water bearing capacity. These tanks would be connected to the Dakhinpur reservoir through pipelines for water recharging. Purified water from these tanks would then be supplied as drinking water to near by areas.

Mr Sahu promised that once the project report is ready he would persuade the central urban development ministry to finance it.

At present the city needs around 46 million liters of water per day but the supply is 33 million litres. This supply reduces in summer due to drying up of Rushikulya river bed. At present Dakhinapur reservoir and the Rushikulya joint water supply scheme at Madhapur are major sources of drinking water for the city. The Dakhinapur reservoir and Rushikulya joint water supply scheme supply 15 million and 12 million litres of water respectively. Besides them 860 tubewells, 14 production wells are also there in the city. But during summer months drinking water has to be supplied to many areas in the city by tankers.

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