The Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) is unlikely to meet the October deadline set by Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal to provide piped drinking water to the people in Guwahati.
The requirement of drinking water for the fast expanding Guwahati city is about 200 million litres per day (MLD).
However, the existing water treatment plants in the city could only satiate only 25 per cent needs of the people living in the city forcing the city-goers to still go for deep boring and depending on other water sources.
Although the Assam government had started four major water supply projects way back in 2013-14, sources said that in any of the proposed water supply projects, not even 40 per cent of the works have been completed.
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It may be mentioned that Assam chief minister Sonowal recently visited the four water supply projects and asked the officials engaged in the projects to make the plants operational by October this year so that piped drinking water could be supplied to every household of the state’s capital city.
“Works related to West Guwahati water supply project which is funded by Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA) is on. We hope it will take about another three to four months’ time. Once completed, we will be able to provide drinking water to at least 5,000 households in the project area,” said the chief executive officer (CEO) of GMDA, Moloy Bora, while talking to Northeast Now.
Bora’s statement indicates that Guwahatians are unlikely to get piped drinking water before November this year.
A recent study carried out by the Action Aid also brought to the fore that presently only 30 per cent of Guwahati city area is covered by the piped water network for water supply from these water treatment plants (WTPs).
“However, this 30 per cent coverage is not absolute,” said researcher for the Action Aid study, Nayanjyoti Bhuyan.
Bhuyan further observed that there is absence of governance leading to the chaos and said there is lack of coordination between the agencies which is also adding to the problems of water scarcity.