The government’s ambitious drinking water project ‘Jaladhare’ will now cover urban areas. The project was originally conceptualised to provide piped water supply in every village and was projected as a permanent solution to the problem of drinking water in rural areas.
At a high-level meeting Kumaraswamy chaired at his home office Krishna, it was opined that the project should also cover urban habitations, excluding Bengaluru, which do not have assured drinking water supply.
Accordingly, Kumaraswamy directed the departments of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) and Urban Development to rework the project’s blueprint and figure out how it can be implemented and managed, said a statement by the chief minister’s office. The meeting also discussed funding options for the project.
The Jaladhare project, which Kumaraswamy announced in his July budget, is estimated to cost Rs 53,000 crore. Mooted by the RDPR department, the Jaladhare project was meant to be a scaled-up version of the multi-village drinking water supply scheme of Gadag.
The idea was to draw water from rivers or reservoirs and supply it after purification. Ministers Krishna Byre Gowda and D K Shivakumar, chief secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar and other senior officials were present.