The State Government would be constructing a conventional Water Treatment Plant at Birkoni in the district. The plant is expected to process 2.5 million litres of water per day. The cost of the project is an estimated Rs79.19 lakh.
The project is being executed by Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation ltd (CSIDC) which had already floated a tender for installation and commissioning of the plant.
It may also be recalled that the Chhattisgarh Government had installed as many as 83 ‘Reverse Osmosis’ (RO) plants last year in the regions facing problems of salinity in water used for drinking purposes.
This apart, there are now 1,252 plants which remove high iron content from drinking water besides 227 plants clearing away high fluoride content from water supplied to the users in various parts of the State, officials stated.
Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials informed that the government has established 26 district-level laboratories in the State for checking fluoride content in ground water sources.
During the last three years, as many as 56,388 samples collected from ground water sources across the state have been examined in the aforesaid laboratories. Out of these, 328 samples were found high in fluoride content.
The Government spent more than Rs5.62 crore during 2012-13 for implementation of various schemes formulated for ensuring safe drinking water to the people living in fluoride affected areas.
In May last year, the State Government has established a total of 105 ‘Flouride Removal Plants’ in settlements of 44 villages in Bastar division.
In September this year, Chief Minister Raman Singh had approved Rs190 crore under the State Government’s ‘Nal-Jal Scheme’ for eliminating salinity in water supply being made to nearly 152 villages of Bemetara district from Shivnath River.
The PHED officials informed that under ‘Nal-Jal’ scheme nearly 1.74 lakh people residing in several villages of Bemetara, Navagarh and Saja block will be benefitted.
Under the scheme, 751 km of pipelines and 139 overhead tanks will be facilitated to ensure the supply of safe drinking water in villages. This apart, many parts of Chhttisgarh are troubled with drinking water shortages on account of the continuously falling ground water level.
The problem escalates in summer as rivers, rivulets, ponds and even hand pumps go dry in many areas. The drinking water problem increases day after day because of its non-conservation during the monsoons through rain water harvesting methods, officials stated.
Keeping in mind all these problems, the State Government decided to adopt rainwater harvesting system and implemented rules for installing this system in houses not only in urban areas but in other areas also, so that the ground water level, which is rapidly declining every year could be increased to some extent.
The Government had decided that besides official buildings, private houses would also be constructed with rainwater harvesting system. Such order has been issued to urban areas also.
According to the order, while passing the drawing for construction of new building, the authority should ensure that rainwater harvesting system is being installed in the new building. Additional fee has also been prescribed for it.
As a result, if the landowner does not install the system in the building, urban bodies would install it in the building with the money deposited by the owner. After three years of the issuance of the order, now it has become compulsory to construct rainwater-harvesting system in all government buildings.
Under the rainwater harvesting system, it is mandatory to construct such a system at the time of construction of building, so that rainwater does not go waste during monsoons.