Tap water supply work in Katihar in full swing

KATIHAR: The tap water supply work in urban households of Katihar is in full swing under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) project in the district, officials said.
In the first phase, 16,451 out of the 21,054 households have started getting tap drinking water, which is 78% of the target. In the phase II, 6,422 (94%) of the targeted 6,716 households have started receiving water.
BUIDCO executive engineer Kapil Deo Prasad said the cost of the project was around Rs155 crore. He said 14 borewells were already constructed.
However, three projects under AMRUT in Katihar have been facing hurdles because of the non-availability of suitable land for the purpose. These are at Laliyahi, Industrial Area and Gami Tola. Marshy land and waterlogging are creating problems in constructing overhead tanks for the storage of water and its supply to the town households. Even treating water before making it fit for drinking is a challenging task for the urban development department’s officials in Katihar because the region has high content of iron in water.
Assistant engineer at BUIDCO, Pankaj Kumar, said, “The level of iron in the water is 8PPM. It is with the help of pressure filtration technology that we bring down the iron content to 0.3PPM. We appeal to every household to avail piped water supply, because it is free of cost and the treated water is healthy for consumption.”