Nod to ₹2,142 cr canal water project for Amritsar, Ludhiana

CHANDIGARH:THE Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday approved a ₹2,142-crore project for canalbased water supply for Amritsar and Ludhiana cities, 70% of the cost of which will be financed by World Bank’s lending arm International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). Punjab government will bear the 30% cost as per a proposal mooted by the local government department for adoption of Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) under the Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project.

The Punjab cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh through video conferencing on Wednesday gave the nod for the project that will focus o four components — strengthening urban and water supply service management, improving water supply infrastructure, land acquisition and rehabilitation & resettlement, Covid crisis response and project management.

The state government had in June 2018 requested the World Bank to support Punjab in the project. With technical assistance from the World Bank, the pre-feasibility reports had been prepared for both cities in 2015 and updated in 2019, which proposed the need to migrate from rapidly depleting and contaminated decentralised ground water sources to a centralised treated surface water source.

The land requirement for construction of water treatment plants (WTPS) and treated water collection tanks and pumping stations close to the canals in Amritsar and Ludhiana stands at 40 acres and 50 acres, respectively.in Amritsar, the land has been acquired at Vallah village along the Upper Bari Doab Canal (UBDC) at a cost of ₹36.4 crore. In Ludhiana, the land has been identified near Rampur village and acquisition process is underway.

PUNJAB TO PURCHASE SEVEN NEW RNA MACHINES

The cabinet also gave its nod to procure seven automatic RNA (ribonucleic acid) extraction machines for the viral testing labs at three government medical colleges in Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot, in addition to four more for the newly set-up viral testing labs in Mohali, Ludhiana and Jalandhar.

These machines will be procured within a month, amid increasing cases of Covid in the state. The move is aimed at controlling the spread of the pandemic through increased testing by augmenting the state’s fight under Mission Fateh.

The entire procurement process will be handled by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, vice-chancellor.