Bisalpur dam can supply water to Jaipur till October

JAIPUR: As the demand for water increases in the city by the day, the administration is faced with a growing concern over supply of water. As per the Public Health and Engineering department (PHED) data, Bisalpur dam can supply water to Jaipur and nearby areas till October 2018.

At present, Bisalpur has 9.82 TMC (Thousand Million Cubic Feet) water which will last for not more than five months. In total, 38.7 TMC water can be stored in the dam but only 33.15 TMC is used and the rest is left for aquatic purposes like fisheries, etc. Out of 33.15 TMC water, 8 TMC is used for irrigation, PHED uses 16.2 TMC to supply drinking water in Jaipur, Tonk and Ajmer and the remaining 8.95 TMC gets evaporated.

Dinesh Kumar Saini, additional chief engineer, PHED, said, “If rainfall in this monsoon is good then there is nothing to worry about or else we will have think about some alternatives like digging new tube wells, etc.”

In the year 2009, there was almost drought-like situation in Rajasthan and arrangements were made to dig tube wells in the city but late monsoon saved the people at that time and the situation came back to normal.

Around June 15, the monsoon enters Rajasthan from Hadoti, Banswara, Dungarpur and stays till mid-September. Around 545 MLD (million litre per day) water is supplied to Jaipur out of which 470 MLD is from Bisalpur dam and remaining 70 MLD comes from tube wells through tankers which are supplied to areas not connected with Bisalpur dam.

In Jaipur, 301 tankers are supplied by the government every day in areas which are not connected to Bisalpur dam or where tube wells and wells have no water due to lower level of ground water. Residents of areas like Kho Nagoriyan, Prithiviraj Nagar, Jagatpura, etc., have been regularly demanding to connect their colonies to Bisalpur pipeline.

Plan for a new pipeline to supply around 216 MLD water has been sanctioned. After the completion of this project, there will be enough water to supply to the people up to 2025 and areas left out will also be connected to the dam.