Respite for Mohali on water front

Sanjay Bumbroo

Mohali, April 3

With an additional water supply of 20 million gallons per day (MGD) from phase 5 and 6 of the Kajauli waterworks, residents in the city have finally got a respite from the water shortage this summer.

The additional supply will primarily benefit residents of new sectors, including Sector 66 to 69 and 76 to 80, where around 50,000 residents have so far been getting water from tubewells. The rest of the city already gets 10 MGD of water from phase 3 and 4 of the Kajauli waterworks, located on the Bhakra mainline canal near Morinda in Rupnagar district. Apart from Mohali, the waterworks also meet the requirement of Chandigarh and the Chandimandir area in Panchkula district.

For the past several years, Mohali has been reeling under an acute water shortage as the gap between the demand and supply stretches up to 12 MGD during peak summer. So far, against the peak demand of 32 MGD, Mohali had been getting 10 MGD of water from the Kajauli waterworks and 10 MGD from 75 tubewells. The addition of 20 MGD would ensure ample water supply for the city.

MC Commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg said the new sectors, which were all under the Municipal Corporation now for water supply maintenance, were getting canal water after the trials concluded on March 31. Now, the supply from tubewells has been stopped and underground reserves will be used only in case of an emergency.

Kuljinder Kaur, councillor from Sector 80, said the additional supply would benefit residents as they had been suffering due to low and contaminated supply, besides shortage during summer.

A senior GMADA official said five MGD of the additional water would be used to cater to the needs of residents of Kharar and Morinda. He said Kharar would get its share of five MGD potable water from phase 5 and 6 of the Kajauli waterworks to overcome scarcity of drinking water and rapid depletion of the groundwater. The required infrastructure was still being set up. Meanwhile, Mohali would use this share and one MGD of water would be allocated to Morinda, he added.

Chandigarh already receives an additional share of 35 MGD of water from the two new phases set up at a cost of Rs200 crore. The 40-km pipeline from these phases for additional supply to Mohali has been set up by GMADA at a cost of Rs60 crore.