Puri on Monday became the first city in India where people can avail high quality drinking water directly from the tap on 24-hour basis.
“Puri has become the first city in the country to implement a project of this kind. It has enabled the people of Puri to collect quality drinking water directly from the tap. Henceforth, people need not have to store or filter drinking water,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said while inaugurating the ‘Drink from Tap project’.
“The inauguration of ‘Drink from Tap’ project marks a new chapter. No metropolitan city in India have such facility yet. Similar facilities are available only in world-class cities like London, New York and Singapore,” Mr. Patnaik said.
Water fountains
“The project would benefit 2.5 lakh citizens of Puri and 2 crore tourists who visit the tourist place every year. They need not have to move around with water bottle. Puri would no more be burdened with 400 metric tonne of plastic waste,” he pointed out. Water fountains have been developed at 400 locations in Puri.
Narrating the sequence of events leading to the implementation of the project, Mr. Pantaik said that cyclone Fani had made landfall in Puri on May 3, 2019, and he arrived there on May 5.
The Odisha Chief Minister said he was deeply shocked to find the condition of Puri and on the same day, he vowed to develop Puri into a world heritage city. “The Srikshetra scheme is going on as per plan and with Puri will reach a new peak of development,” he said.
According to Pratap Jena, Urban Development Minister, a similar project is under various stages of implementation in 16 other urban centres of Odisha.
