Darjeeling Municipality plans to augment water supply within town
Darjeeling: The Darjeeling Municipality has plans to augment water supply in the hill town by tapping water from the natural springs. The Municipality has set a target of installing 600 public hydrants (to supply residents who do not have water connections at home and can draw water from the public tap connected to the hydrants) in all the 32 wards of the
Darjeeling town.
Dipen Thakuri, Chairman, Darjeeling Municipality, stated: “The drinking water distribution project under AMRUT commenced in 2017. However owing to the Pandemic the implementation got delayed. Around 80 per cent of the work has been completed.”
He further stated that under the AMRUT 2.4 project, water sources are being tapped into to augment supply. “With the monsoons along with the supply from the conduit lines feeding the SInchal reservoirs along with water being pumped from the Balason river we are getting around 4 Million Gallons per Day (MGD.) However during the dry season this comes down to 2.5 MGD. With the present supply we can afford to supply water to the public hydrants but supplying to each and every household will be a herculean task. For this we have to tap the natural springs also” :added the Chairman. Around 14 feeder conduit lines are operational at the Sinchal water reservoirs. Sources state that the demand for water in the Hill town is around 15 MGD with a population of around 2 lakh including a large floating population, especially during the peak tourist season. The 2011 census records a population of 118805 in the Darjeeling Municipality area.
Thakuri added: “We had tried tapping natural springs in a pilot project in Rajbari and pump the water into a central tank in the locality from where it was distributed. It was successful. We have to replicate such models in every ward to augment water supply.
The AMRUT project water supply from the Bokshi Jhora was also tested. It was successful. The water pressure in the pipes was good.”
In another development the Kurseong Municipality plans to conduct a survey of all the Jhoras (springs) in Kurseong town which allow the natural flow of water during monsoon. However owing to dumping of garbage and plastic the Jhoras have been blocked leading to water flowing out on the streets during heavy rainfall.
Subash Pradhan, Vice Chairman, Board of Administrators, Kurseong Municipality, stated: “We have been sensitising the public not to dump garbage into the Jhoras but this is still continuing. We have to monitor this using CCTV cameras. We will be approaching the GTA for CCTV cameras as the earlier 45 that had been installed in all vantage locations have mostly been spoiled by monkeys.”
