Guntur: In a move to address the growing drinking water needs of the city, state govt has given green signal to take up new drinking water project under Amrut-2 scheme. The project will be taken up with a cost of 330 crore under Concessionaire Hybrid Annuity Model (Cham). The govt has moved to Cham in order to lessen its burden. The contract agency will take up the project with its own funds and recover the amount with annual interest in a phased manner after completion of the project. The govt had also set a condition that the contract agency would be responsible for the maintenance of the project for 10 years. The govt would not pay any additional charges towards maintenance of the scheme.Meanwhile, the GMC proposed to construct a new filtration facility near Gorantla village. About 16 acres of land has been earmarked for the new project. The city’s entire drinking supplies depend on the existing filtration facility in Takkellapadu reservoir located on the outskirts of the city. The facility has a capacity to treat about 130 megaliters per day (MLD) water while another plant at Sangam Jagarlamudi village has capacity of 13 MLD.However, the GMC is unable to tap more than 100MLD from both the plants while the city’s requirements shot up to nearly 160-200 MLD. The civic authorities are anticipating that the city’s drinking water requirements will further increase in the coming days particularly in the wake of development of capital city. With Guntur and Vijayawada being the nearest cities to the capital city, people are likely to migrate to cities in view of the existing infrastructure such as healthcare and educational institutions. “We are planning the new scheme keeping in view the requirements of the city for another two to three decades,” said commissioner Puli Srinivasulu. In fact, the residents in the 10-villages that were merged into Guntur city about a decade ago, were unable to fetch sufficient drinking water from the civic body’s facilities. The GMC planned an over-head reservoir on a hillock near Gorantla with a view to supply water to the neighbouring area via gravity..
