MP: Narmada water for Khandwa city

Bhopal, May 22: The west Madhya Pradesh town of Khandwa will be provided water for drinking and industrial purpose from the Indira Sagar reservoir on the Narmada river.

A high-level meeting, presided over by Chief Secretary and Narmada Valley Development Authority Chairman R C Sahni here yesterday, considered the Khandwa Municipal Corporation's demand for supplying water for drinking and industrial purpose in the city in three phases taking into consideration the requirement for next 30 years.

In the first phase, 12,172 million litre water will be supplied annually from 2007, 18,498 million litre from 2022 and 26,565 million litre from 2037, official sources said today. The municipal corporation will be required to bear the water charges prescribed by the government.

The Indira Sagar reservoir is targetted to irrigate 1.23 lakh acre land, besides supplying 0.06 MAF water for drinking and industrial purpose.

Out of 18.25 MAF Narmada water allotted to the state, 1.5 MAF is proposed for drinking and industrial purpose. Supply of 7,14,000 million litre water is proposed to meet the drinking water requirement of nine towns, while permission had already been given for supplying 474.5 million litre water annually from Indira Sagar to Mundinagar in Khandwa district.

The Indira Sagar reservoir has usable water storage capacity of 9.75 billion cubic metre and the supply to Khandwa district will be only 0.27 percent of the total capacity, the sources added.

UNI