The Public Health Department (PHD) would soon start work on a 115-million litre water treatment plant in Bhubaneswar under PHD Division-3.
The Rs 250-crore project would take five years to complete and would address water supply demand in the city for the next 15 years, officials said. Initially planned two years back, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the project has now been approved by the Urban Development Department.
While the project was earlier expected to be located at Munduli, now it is planned in the city.
“The waters of Kuakhai and Daya rivers are polluted as they flow through the city. We are going to draw water from the Mahanadi from Munduli as the water is not polluted there. Also, we are planning to set up the plant around Trishulia or Chandrasekharpur as there are vast amounts of Government land there,” said a senior PHD official.
There would be no water scarcity around Infocity-2, Khordha and Jatni as there is a project under construction there. However, there is no water supply from Damana Square till Nandankanan Square even though population is on a steep rise in those areas, the official said.
Notably, there are three water treatment plants for the city as of now, but they are not able to meet the demand as the water levels go down in Daya and Kuakhai during summer. This makes the Mahanadi the only choice for round-the-year reliable water supply for the city’s ever-growing population.
There is a provision to draw 82 million litres of water from Kuakhai daily, but almost 96 million litres of water is being drawn to meet the demand. On the other hand, even though there is a provision to draw 15 million litres of water from Daya and 115 million litres from Munduli, only 100 million litres of water is being drawn from these places, resulting in uneven load on the plants.
While the daily water requirement of the city is 165 million litres, 255 million litres is being drawn from bore-wells, Kuakhai, Kathajodi and Mundli. The city still can’t meet its water requirement as more than 100 million litres of water goes waste every day.