BHUBANESWAR: Puri, which attracts two crore tourists every year, has now earned the unique distinction of becoming the first Indian city to get round-the-clock piped pure drinking water.
Launching the ambitious project under the banner of ‘Sujal - drink from tap mission’ through the virtual platform, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday said Puri has now joined the league of international cities like London, New York and Singapore in supplying quality piped drinking water from taps 24/7.
"The launch of ‘Sujal: drink from tap mission’ in Puri is a new chapter in Odisha’s development. It makes the heritage city the first in India to achieve this milestone, matching the standards of supply of drinking water in many foreign cities. Around 2.5 lakh people of Puri town and two crore tourists visiting the city every year can now get quality drinking water from taps, doing away with the need to store and filter water,” Naveen said in his address.
Drinking water fountains have been set up at 400 locations in the pilgrim town to ensure that the visitors do not carry plastic bottles. The government hopes that the Sujal piped water scheme will eliminate the use of three crore plastic bottles, thereby preventing the formation of 400 metric tonnes of plastic waste in Puri every year.
Naveen said, “Sujal, which is a transformative project under the government’s 5T charter, has been commissioned only in nine months. The project will subsequently be extended to 16 other urban localities with a 40 lakh population.”
Transparency, teamwork, technology, time-frame and transformation make up the 5Ts and have been included in the government departments for better governance.
The chief minister said quality drinking water is closely linked with good health, human development index and economy. In order to ensure that the people of the state get safe and hygienic drinking water, the Odisha government has increased its budget from Rs 200 crore to Rs 4,000 crore in the last five years.
The government said the initiative has been launched under the ‘Jalsathi’ programme by joining hands with women self-help groups (SHGs) of Mission Shakti, a state initiative to empower women. The quality surveillance of the drinking water supply will be conducted by the ‘Jalsathis’ picked from the women SHGs.
Sources said Puri would require at least 36 million litres per day (MLD) filtered drinking water under the scheme. The drinking water will be sourced from Mangala river in Puri. To ensure purity and quality of the water, the district administration has installed an online water quality analyzer at the Mangala Ghat water treatment plant (WTP).
"The water's quality is being tested and monitored continuously throughout the day by the online analyzer before being stored and supplied to the people. The device will raise an alarm if any technical glitch occurs during the quality check. The public health engineering organisation (PHEO) will maintain the piped water system," a district official said.
Union ministry of housing and urban affair’s secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, who attended the launch of the Sujal piped water project, appreciated the Odisha government for achieving the milestone and said it would work as a role model for other states.
Chief secretary Suresh Mohapatra, 5T secretary V K Pandian, state housing and urban development secretary G Mathi Vathanan and minister Pratap Jena among other dignitaries attended the project’s launch.
