Darjeeling, Nov. 20: The deadline for the completion of the Darjeeling Water Supply Scheme has been extended to April 2010, making the people of this hill town wait for four more months. The project to bring water from the Balason river had been conceived in 1995.
Darjeeling is known for its perennial water problem. During the dry season, the municipality supplies water only twice a month. In monsoon, the civic body manages to supply once a week, forcing residents to buy water throughout the year.
Chendup Lepcha, a professional artist and businessman with a family of 10 members, shrugs when he hears about the delay. “We have been waiting for so long, four-months delay is nothing. But I hope that it does not get delayed further. In Darjeeling, we buy water at Rs 300 per 1,000 litres, brought up in tanks from streams below the town. A thousand litres last a week for a family of four.”
Dawa Narbula, the Congress MP from Darjeeling today, said: “I have just found out that the state government has written to the Planning Commission that the project will be completed in April 2010, instead of December 2009, which was the earlier dateline.”
The MP said he was unaware of the “reasons” for the delay. “No clear reason has been given,” said Narbula, hinting that there were political reasons for the delay.
“No one can deny that it was because of my persuasion that the Planning Commission released Rs 10 crore for the project in December 2005. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee came to Darjeeling and laid the foundation stone of the project on February 19, 2006. If the project had started immediately, it would have been completed by 2008 end,” said Narbula. But the project took off only in July last year.
“Had the project been completed before the elections, we (the Congress) would have swept the polls. Politics seems to be involved in the delay,” said Narbula.
The MP, who was speaking on the sidelines of a book release programme here, accused the state government of trying to take all credit for the project. “Although I had pursued the project right from the start, the state government did not include me in the committee to oversee its implementation,” said Narbula.
The hill leader said he had written to the chief minister and the public health engineering minister about it.
The Darjeeling project was chalked out in 1995-96 and the cost was estimated to be around Rs 38 crore. The project was revised in 2006 and the cost escalated to Rs 55.86 crore.
Even though the town requires about 15-18 lakh gallons of water everyday, the municipality supplies only about 7-8 lakh gallons.
Under the project, water will be pumped out from the Balason at two places till Tiger Hill — a distance of about 12km. The water supply scheme was designed taking into consideration the expected population of Darjeeling in 2032. The present water supply system dates back to the early 1930s when it was built to cater to a population of about 40,000. The hill town currently has about 1.7 lakh people.
A member of the monitoring committee said he had heard about the delay but was still unaware of the exact reasons. “We shall discuss the causes at our next meeting,” he said without specifying a date.
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