Malda: ‘Nearly 9L households to get purified drinking water by 2024 end’

Malda: Nearly 9 lakh rural households in Malda will be supplied purified drinking water by the end of 2024. Till now, almost 35 per cent of the households have been connected with this service. The district administration is aiming to supply the remaining 5 to 6 lakh families with arsenic-free and purified drinking water by December 2024.

Nitin Singhania, District Magistrate Malda, said: “Rs 3,200 crore has been allocated to Malda for this and it is the highest in the state. This is because there are three separate projects to provide arsenic-free water by drawing water from three different rivers in the district. The allotment for these three projects is Rs 2,150 crore.’’

Singhania further stated that there has been some delay in starting the door-to-door water connection work due to unavailability of land and other land related problems. “However, 228 out of 232 such land issues have already been resolved,” Singhania said.

Such water purifying projects are already operational in Manikchak and Ratua. Three more arsenic-free water purifying plants are to come up soon. Water will be pumped from Fulhar River at Mathurapur in Manikchak and sent to three arsenic-prone blocks of Manikchak, English Bazar and Kaliachak. In the project of Ratua, water is being taken from Fulhar River and being treated. This arsenic-free water will be supplied to Ratua-I and adjacent blocks.

On the other hand, water will be taken from Tangan River in Bamangola and after purification will be sent to Bamangola and adjacent blocks. Thus, arsenic-free water connection will be provided to people of 9 blocks. The remaining 6 blocks of Malda will also have door-to-door piped water connection.

Nityananda Acharya, executive officer of the Arsenic Free Drinking Water Project of Malda Division, stated: “Arsenic-free drinking water project in Manikchak was launched in 2002.

The retention and carrying capacity of the project was completed in 2015. As many as 3,40,000 families in five blocks are under this project. We have been able to provide water connection to as many as 1,20,000 families from this project. We will be able to provide arsenic free drinking water connection to the remaining 2,20,000 families from the Jal Jeevan Mission project. For this reason, the work of laying the main pipeline of about 50 kilometers is going on. “