Mission Bhagiratha

Bhagiratha is a project for safe drinking water for every village and city household in Telangana State, with a budget of ₹43,791 crores.[1] The project is a brainchild of Telangana Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekar Rao, that aims to provide piped water to 2.32 crore people in 20 lakh households in urban and 60 lakhs in rural areas of Telangana.[2] The ambitious project will supply clean drinking water to all households in the state through water sourced from River Godavari (53.68 TMC) and River Krishna (32.43TMC). The bulk supply is expected to be completed by May 2018 and intra-village, intra-locality works will be completed by December 2018.[3]

Mission Bhagiratha
Type of projectSafe drinking water
LocationTelangana, India
FounderGovernment of Telangana
Chief MinisterK.Chandrashekhar Rao
MinistryTDWSCL
Established6 August 2016 (2016-08-06)
Budget₹43,791 crores
StatusActive
WebsiteOfficial website

History

Named after a great king, Bhagiratha, who brought the River Ganga, a humongous task, to Earth from the heavens.

The inspiration for the project was drawn as few of the habitations relied on contaminated groundwater. In Nalgonda district that is drought-prone, 973 villages with high fluoride content that leads to dreadful disease, fluorosis.

A similar project, Maneru Manchineella Pathakam, was conceived and completed by K. Chandrashekhar Rao, when he was the MLA for Siddipet Assembly Constituency in 1996-97, at a cost of ₹100 crores. The water was sourced from Lower Manair Dam and supplied to all households in 180 villages across Siddipeta constituency. The Chief Minister vowed on the floor of the assembly in 2016 that he will not seek votes in 2019 if the water project is not completed by 2018. However, the project is not anywhere close to completion even by mid 2019.

The project was launched by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi at Komatibanda village, Medak district in Gajwel constituency on 6 August 2016.[4] The other dignitaries were, the Chief Minister of Telangana, K Chandrashekar Rao.

Technical and Feasibility study

The central government-owned, Water and Power Consultancy Services (WAPCOS) has done vetting of DPRs, Monitoring, Supervision, and Quality Control of TDWSP works.

The technical feasibility and design was done by irrigation officials of the government.[5] Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Indian Water Works Association, a foremost expert on a piped network, Dr. Srinivasa Lingireddy of Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky, who has over 20 years of experience in pipe network modeling was also consulted for the project. Lea Associates (LASA) prepared the tender process.

The project

The entire project is divided into 26 segments, comprising 25,000 habitations, at an estimated cost of ₹42,853 crores. The Krishna and Godavari rivers and existing reservoirs will be interlinked to collect, reserve and supply treated drinking water in the state, to every household in over 25,000 villages and 65 towns. The target is to provide 100 liters drinking water per person in rural areas, and 150 liters per person in urban areas. Around 4 TMC is planned for industrial use. The project had to take 13,000 permissions from various departments like railways, defense, national highways, forest, irrigation, panchayat raj, roads & buildings, etc.

Telangana Drinking Water Supply Corporation (TDWSCL) was established by the government to implement Mission Bhagiratha.[6] There are 59 overhead and ground-level tanks. 40 TMC water is sourced from tanks and reservoirs, the area range from 100 acres to 10,000 acres.

The piping system runs through 1.697 lakh kilometers.[7] The electricity required is 182 megawatts.

Maintenance

The project Contractor is to take care of the maintenance of the entire water network for 10 years, at no additional cost to the government.

Water purification

The 150 water treatment plants, 62 pumping stations, 35,573 Overhead service reservoirs, 27 intake wells are set up. The electric motors, pumping systems were sourced from BHEL with advanced technology

See also

References
  1. "Mission Bhagiratha is a year ahead of the deadline, says Irrigation Minister". The Hindu. 2 February 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  2. Mission Bhagiratha
  3. Mission Bhagiratha water by March first week
  4. Narendra Modi launches Mission Bhagiratha in maiden Telangana visit - Livemint
  5. Help for Mission Bhagiratha - TELANGANA - The Hindu
  6. Telangana: Bhagiratha grows with drinking water projects
  7. http://missionbhagiratha.telangana.gov.in/
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.