Fatehgarh Sahib, June 17, 2018: The State Govt. has sanctioned Rs.111.53 Crore under the Punjab Rural Water & Sanitation Sector Improvement Project (PRWSSIP) for 100 villages out of 440 falling in the district, where the quality of drinking water is deteriorating day by day particularly due to presence of high percentage of Fluoride, heavy metals and Uranium, causing health hazards and moreover the water level is rapidly decreasing due to substantial drawl for irrigation purpose, said Kanwalpreet Brar Deputy Commissioner. She said that the main objective is to increase access of rural community to improve and sustainable rural water supply and sanitation services, based on surface water, keeping in view the day by day increase in contamination of ground water sources. She said that tenders have been floated and work will start shortly.
Dc said that at present 277 Rural Drinking Water Supply Schemes based on tube wells are covering all the 440 villages of District but now the ground water sources are found to be non sustainable over a period, so it is necessary to use surface water from available surface water resources for the existing drinking water supply schemes, and thereby, reducing the use of contaminated ground water. She said that surface water will be supplied to villages through a network of supply mains in bulk quantities to the existing OHSRs, of the Water Supply Schemes. The Water Treatment Plant will be installed in the close vicinity of the proposed tapping point so as to have minimal pumping requirement of the raw water.