Ashok Singhal, the urban affairs minister, unveiled a website and a mobile app on Thursday, marking the partial commissioning of the South Central Guwahati water supply project, whose development was scheduled to be finished in 2014.
The application process has also started as a result. The project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has a capacity of 191 million litres per day and is one of four major water projects. South East Guwahati is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), South West Guwahati is funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), and North Guwahati is funded by JICA.
“The vision of chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to provide clean and safe water to people of Guwahati is gradually turning into a reality. I am glad to launch the website and the mobile application for registration of consumers, to be covered in the first phase of the project,” Singhal said during the launch ceremony.
When completed, the project will cover the entire Gauhati East assembly constituency as well as parts of the Dispur assembly constituency. When the project is finished, the Guwahati Jal Board (GJB) targets to have covered over 1.15 lakh households in the aforementioned assembly constituencies.
The first phase of the project will cover approximately 3,000 households in five Gauhati East assembly constituency localities: Amiyanagar, Rudragar, Chandmari, Piyoli Phukan Nagar, and Rajgarh. “The remaining areas will be covered in a phased manner with the progress of the pipeline extension work,” said Pallav Gopal Jha, managing director of the GJB.
Jha, who also serves as the deputy commissioner of the Kamrup (Metro), stated that the application process for household water connections will be open for 15 days beginning Thursday.
