Kolkata: Firhad Hakim, the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister, said on Saturday that providing free drinking water to the people is the topmost priority of the state government and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) is committed to address the issue.
He inaugurated two underground water tanks having 40 lakh gallon and 30 lakh gallon capacities respectively at Salt Lake on Saturday evening.
This project will benefit 2.5 lakh people living in areas under the jurisdiction of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. The water will be supplied from the treatment plant of Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO).
Till recently, drinking water was a major problem in Salt Lake and many people paid money to get water from Kolkata which is supplied by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
After coming to power in 2011, Mamata Banerjee instructed all the civic bodies to use the available sources of water, filter it and supply to the houses.
The project which was inaugurated on Saturday will reduce the drinking water problem in Salt Lake immensely. Four overhead tanks have been set up to store the filtered water which will be supplied through underground pipelines.