469 villages in the two districts covered under the project
The World Bank-assisted Jal Nirmal Project has come as a boon to water-starved villages and those that are affected by contamination of water in Gulbarga and Yadgir districts.
Over 40 per cent of the villages in the two districts have been covered under the Integrated Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme (IRWSS), the Jal Nirmal Project and the Jal Nirmal Additional Financing Project that aim at providing a permanent source of potable water to these villages. Deputy Project Manager of the Jal Nirmal Project V. Satisha told The Hindu here on Saturday that 771 out of the 1,936 villages in Gulbarga and Yadgir districts had been covered under these three projects.
“As many as 112 villages were covered under the IRWSS, 469 under the Jal Nirmal Project, and 190 under the Jal Nirmal Additional Financing Project,” he said.
Mr. Satisha said while the drinking water projects taken up under the IRWSS and the Jal Nirmal Project had been completed and commissioned, work on 190 projects taken up under the additional financing project had already begun and these were expected to be completed by June 2013. He said that among the projects taken up under the additional financing project, five schemes were multi-village schemes, which included the Allagi project in Afzalpur taluk in Gulbarga district, the Nimbarga project in Aland taluk in Gulbarga district, the Chandankera project in Chincholi taluk, the Bhagodi project in Chittapur taluk in Gulbarga district and the Wanadurga project in Shahpur taluk in Yadgir district.
Mr. Satisha said the remaining projects were single-village projects that aimed at increasing the availability of water by deepening and flushing existing borewells and desilting open wells and providing new sources of water in villages where the water quality was poor. Mr. Satisha said that the first choice in selection of water sources for individual villages and multi-village projects were the surface drinking water sources. “Wherever surface drinking water sources are not available, we drill new borewells or dig open wells,” he said
He said among the multi-village projects being implemented, the Nimbarga and Allagi projects were in an advanced stage of completion and by December-end these projects would be ready.
“The Nimbarga project will meet the drinking water needs of the new campus of the Central University of Karnataka at Aland taluk,” Mr. Satisha said.
