'RO systems to be installed in 52 villages of Patiala'

To ensure the supply of safe potable water, 52 villages of Patiala district have been identified where RO systems at the cost of Rs 6 crores would be installed.

To ensure the supply of safe potable water, 52 villages of Patiala district have been identified where RO systems at the cost of Rs 6 crores would be installed.

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Stating this here on Thursday Surjit Singh Rakhra, rural development and panchayats minister Punjab said the state government was committed to provide safe drinking water to the villages where heavy contents of uranium and other harmful contents were found in the water samples.

He said: “To curb the spread of deadly diseases caused due to the contaminated water in the villages of Malwa belt of Punjab, the state government has chalked out an ambitious plan to install RO water systems in the affected villages in a phased manner. And work on installation of RO in 52 villages has already been started in Patiala”, he added.

With the installation of new RO system, people could get 20 litres safe drinking water daily at a cost of 10 paisa per litre instead of Rs 15 per litre available in the market.

Inaugurating the first RO system installed in the Maain village of Patiala district, the minister said that all the villages where heavy content were found in water samples would get the RO system installed at the earliest.

He said that in the coming two years an amount of Rs 1,034 crore would be spent to provide potable water to the 2,481 villages of Punjab and by the end of December 2013 all 15170 rural habitats would be supplied with safe drinking water.

He said that to further streamline the ongoing rural drinking water supply system in the current year 2012-13, another plan has been formulated to provide 70 litres of water per person per day in 600 villages of Punjab. He said that about 12,000 Punjab villages have been covered under rural water supply programmes and the remaining villages would be covered by the end of this year.