Gujarat government’s water projects boon for hilly and tribal people

Water will be supplied to 174 villages by lifting 7.5 crore liter of water.

The water will be lifted from Madhuban Dam at the height of 1,837 feet.

New Delhi: In a bid to provide tap water to every household under Har Ghar Jal Mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will inaugurate Astol project on June 10, which will ensure tap water to 4.50 lakh people residing in 174 tribal villages and 1,028 hamlets on the hills of Valsad district.

“The project will give impetus to the ‘har ghar jal’ mission to connect every house with tap water, which is progressing rapidly” a statement said here on Wednesday.

The Gujarat government aims to provide tap water connections to 100 per cent rural households by September this year.

Under this project, 28 pumping stations with a capacity of 8-Megawatt Volt Ampere (MVA) have been set up which will help supply about 75 million litres of drinking water daily to 4.50 lakh people

Around 81 km of pumping line, 855 km of distribution line and 340 km pipelines were laid to bring water to big and small settlements. Establishment of two filter plants (each with a capacity of 33 million litres of water per day) for the availability of pure drinking water with a total capacity of 66 million litres of water per day.

To store water in these areas, six high tanks (capacity of 4.7 million litres), 28 underground tanks (capacity of 7.7 crore litres) and 1,202 tanks (capacity of 44 million litres) at the ground level in villages and habitations have been constructed

“It was a challenging task to complete the Astol project in Kaprada and Dharampur talukas of Valsad district. I am glad our engineers overcame all the hurdles. It’s a technological marvel from the engineering perspective as well” Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said in a statement.

He added that through this project, we will ensure the availability of water in these hilly areas by taking water to the height of about 200-storey building (1,875 ft),”

The topography of the tribal areas Dharampur and Kaprada is such that neither the retention of rainwater is possible nor the groundwater can be stored.

The reason is that as most of the land here is rocky and rainwater run-off is rapid. As a result, only reservoirs are filled during the rainy season. Many springs and streams dry up during summers, the Gujarat governement said in a statement.

In 2018, the state government initiated the Astol project at the cost of Rs 586.16 crore with an aim to ensure potable water supply to the people living in these hilly areas,it said.

Giving a details of the project, the government said water from Madhuban Dam will be lifted to the height of about 200 storeys to reach 50 villages of Dharampur and 124 villages of Kaprada.

This will be the first time that the Madhuban Dam’s water will be used for drinking purposes as earlier it has been only used for irrigation purposes, it said.