The capital swelling in number of habitation would present a challenge of quenching thirst of all and sundry evidently the reason the Water Resources and Drinking Water and Sanitation Department are striving to develop alternate sources of water for Ranchi. Ranchi needs more sources of water as the existing sources are most likely to fail in meeting water requirements in future.
An inter-departmental high-level technical committee would be exploring the possibility of developing additional sources that can meet the future needs of water.
“I have given signal to go ahead with the committee formation and the department would work on it. I have asked them to develop a plan. A survey has to be conducted and experts on the subject would be consulted for creating more sources of water for the capital,” said Water Resources Minister CP Chaudhary, who also holds the portfolio of DWSD.
The department of Water Resources is holding consultation to identify people who could lead the team to explore alternate sources for Ranchi municipal area only. After lull in the activity due to vacation, the department is likely to complete the committee formation in about a week.
“It is in the process and the team would be notified in about a week. It will be only for the purpose of exploring the alternate sources of water,” said Principal Secretary of Water Resource, Sukhdev Singh.
Notably, water supply has been severely impaired because of falling water level in reservoirs that cater to the city’s requirement, especially Hatia dam, receding underground water table and a surging population with growing need of water for domestic consumption.
Even though the department of DWSD has been working on channelising water from surplus to deficit areas through Hatia-Getalsud water pipeline project, total water supplying capacity of existing reservoirs besides Hatia dam—Kanke and Getalsud—would be exhausted with the completion of the pipeline project leaving creation of additional sources of water as the only strategy to fall back on to meet future requirements.
“If it rains, then existing reservoirs could meet the requirement with 51-52 mgdl of water needs of Ranchi. But, the way city is expanding there is a need to develop more sources to meet future requirement as the present capacity may not meet future demands of water,” maintained Secretary of DWSD, AP Singh.
The Getalsud-Ranchi water pipeline project is being done by l&T infra and it is likely to be completed by October, 2016.