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Move to provide Narmada share for Pithampur
WITH DIRE shortage of water keeping many potential investors away from Pithampur Special Economic Zone, the Madhya Pradesh Audyogik Vikas Kendra Nigam (MPAKVN) is hard at work to wash off the taint of water scarcity.
WITH DIRE shortage of water keeping many potential investors away from Pithampur Special Economic Zone, the Madhya Pradesh Audyogik Vikas Kendra Nigam (MPAKVN) is hard at work to wash off the taint of water scarcity.
As a first step, Nigam bosses are focusing on ensuring the availability of 60-odd million litres daily (MLD) of water earmarked for Pithampur under the third phase of the Narmada project, slated to become operational by 2009.
“We’ve written to the Secretary and vice-chairman, Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA), seeking allocation of the quanta of water proposed to be supplied to Pithampur under the Narmada project,” revealed a senior AKVN official.
‘‘The Authority, however, asked us to route the allocation request through the Chief Engineer, Narmada-Tapti River Basin,’’ he informed. From there the plea will be forwarded to the Vrihad Narmada Mandal, which will finally issue clearances after consultations with the ‘jal upyogita samiti’ (water use committee) and the district administration.
“Although the entire process is expected to take two months we expect investment to improve substantially once additional water starts to flow in,” he added.
A section of MPAKVN officials, however, charges that the clearances would have been obtained much earlier were it not for the lethargy of the concerned officials.
The MP State Industrial Development Corporation (MPSIDC) had issued several reminders on the matter but the missives were ignored, they charge.
“The officials were finally galvanised into action when the Corporation, in a missive dated December 28, issued a deadline to MPAKVN bosses and warned that the matter would be referred to the Secretary if a formal water quota allocation request was not filed promptly,” charged an engineer.
