The commissioner and the mayor visit pumping station. (Express photo)Commissioner of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation K K Yadav Wednesday said that Chandigarh will get additional water supply before August 15 and the city will receive water for 10 hours per day.
Yadav and Mayor Rajesh Kalia, visited the Jandpur pumping station to review the actual progress of the work and found that the trial run is successful. With the addition water, the city will now be getting 29 million gallons per day.
“Everything is complete. In another two days time, the final trial run will be held. Water will reach Chandigarh even before August 15,” Commissioner K K Yadav told Chandigarh Newsline.
Yadav said that water supply in the city will be for 10 hours in a day- four hours in the morning, three hours each in afternoon and evening. The city presently gets water for six hours in a day- three hours each in morning and evening. “The exact timings will be decided in the General House,” Yadav added. Water was scheduled to reach the tank at the pump house in Jandpur by August 8.
At present the UT gets 85 Million gallons daily. Of this 58 MGD comes from Phase I, II, III, IV of Kajauli waterworks and 27 MGD was generated through tubewells. Ground water in the city is already in an alarming situation. In summers the demand goes upto 120 MGD while in winters the demand doesnt go beyond 90 MGD.
“Directions were issued to the officers to check and retest the functioning of pumping machinery and to clean the tanks before the arrival of raw water at Jandpur which is expected to reach there within two to three days,” he said.
The commissioner and the mayor were accompanied by Chief Engineer Manoj Bansal, SE, Public Health, Shalender Singh, and other officers of the MC.
The chief engineer apprised them that the work of bringing additional 29 MGD raw water from Kajauli to Chandigarh, under Augmentation of Water Supply Scheme Phase 5 and 6, is almost completed now. The work of pumping raw water from Kajauli upto Jandpur (shipur) has been done by GMADA for which Rs 98 crores has been deposited by MC.
For water to reach Chandigarh from the Kajauli waterworks, water is lifted from the Bhakra main canal, SYL. The water is supplied to the Sector 39 Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Chandigarh through four pipelines, Phases I, II, III and IV. The work of pumping raw water from Jandpur has been done by the MC at an estimated cost of Rs 89 crore. After the repair and testing of defective pipeline under the Railway track near Mehruli, the pumping was started by GMADA by operating one pump initially from Kajauli waterworks last week.
Kajauli waterworks project has already missed several deadlines in the last three years.
In 2016, the then mayor Arun Sood had said that additional water will be brought from May 1, 2017. As the work could not be completed even in 2017 when the then mayor Asha Jaswal had the charge, the next Mayor Davesh Moudgil along with UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore visited the Kajauli waterworks and Jandpur area in February 2018. However, the work could not be completed even then.
It was claimed that the city will get additional water from May 1, 2018, but the deadline was again missed. The officials then stated that the work will be completed by September, but a fault cropped up in a pipeline that was under the railways. Badnore then convened meetings to ensure that the work is done soon.
