Balurghat: Balurghat municipality started the process of providing water connections to households from Friday.
The officials and engineers along with technicians reached a house in Collegepara and began the initiative.
It has been decided that the water connectivity will be given on application basis. An individual has to submit a specific application form with all necessary information sought by the authority.
One has to pay Rs 5,000 for the general category and Rs 3,000 for the BPL category. According to a municipal source, around 1480 application forms have been submitted till now.
There are about 20,440 households covering all 25 wards, said project engineer Chiradeep Das.
"Our plan is to provide new connections to households. We have started providing water connections from Friday. This has been a continuous process. On the basis of application, the connectivity will be provided after inspection by experts. We have been instructed to gear up the entire process," Das said.
The entire water distribution system of the town has been revamped and it includes providing separate storage tanks with water meters.
Old pipes have been repaired at selected places. As per the scheme, about 18.25 million litres of water is required daily.
The construction of four reservoirs has been completed. A modern water treatment plant has been setup at Hosseinpur with all necessary arrangements.
Water from river Atreyee will be stored in Khidirpur and will be sent through pipelines to the water treatment plant for sedimentation, filtering and chemical disinfection.
Later, the purified water will be stored in four reservoirs ready for distribution to the households. The piped drinking water connection has been a longstanding demand of the inhabitants.
The sub-divisional magistrate and administrator of Balurghat municipality, Isha Mukherjee, said: "We have started providing household connections. As water and life are correlated, chief minister has stressed on providing purified water to all state residents. Funds have been sanctioned and sent to the state urban development agency."
"We need to dig up roads for household water connectivity. We know the secondary examination has been going on and higher-secondary exam is about to start. Our target is not to disturb the examinees. We will speed the rest of work once the examinations are over. The applicants will deposit the amount either by cash or online. We have tied up with a bank to ensure the process is glitch-free," Mukherjee said. She further said the department required electro-mechanical engineers for maintenance.