Punjab Soil & Water Conservation, Technical Education Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Friday laid foundation stone of a project, which would provide round the year flow of treated water for irrigation purposes for 2264 acres agriculture land on its completion at a cost of Rs. 11.10 crore.Kickstarting the construction of Soil and Water Conservation Department’s project here at Piplanwali village, Rana Gurjeet Singh said that the project would cater to irrigation needs of seven villages with proper utilization of treated waste water of Hoshiarpur city through underground pipeline systems. He said that the treated water from a Sewage Treatment Plant of MBBR technology having a capacity of 30 MLD would further supply to seven villages namely Piplanwala, Purheera, Bassi Daulat Khan, Singhriwal, Kuragana, Pandori Rukman and Madooli Bhrahmna for irrigation by farmers. He said that this project would facilitate the farmers with healthy water for fields and crops and they do not need to use untreated water, as used earlier, containing harmful chemicals. ‘‘This project will ensure round the year availability of water to the farmers and treated water being rich in nutrients, will also help in increasing the yield. When compared with earthen open channels, the underground pipeline system has benefit of arresting conveyance losses of irrigation water. Further, this project will reduce dependency of farmers on groundwater for irrigation thereby conserving groundwater in addition to prevention of environmental pollution” said Rana Gurjeet Singh.Giving a clarion call for sustainable and judicious use of soil and water resources, the Minister said that this project would prove to be a roaring success besides preventing excessive use of underground water.
Such initiatives are call of the day to save depleting water table by day, said Rana Gurjeet Singh adding that the treated sewage water could be reused in an efficient and responsible manner. Once the project become operational, the farmers can also save land and labour costs with underground pipelins besides having permanent irrigation infrastructure to nurture their crops, he added.The Minister urged Punjabis to conserve ground water by adopting drip irrigation, reducing paddy cultivation as the transformation in agriculture system was necessitated. He said that the water of ponds could also be used for irrigation purposed as the State Government started this project a few years back by giving allotting him 23 ponds, which was being run successfully. He said that presently Punjab had an availability of four million feet acres water of ponds and efforts are afoot to make this initiative a grand success in time to come.Thanking Minister for initiating this project, MLA Sunder Sham Arora said that the farmers of seven villages would get benefit of this within few months after its completion. He also announced that this project would provide 24X7 water supply to agriculture lands with optimum utilisation of treated water besides ensuring decrease in fertilizer application due to nutrient rich treated water. Earlier a resident of Purhiran village Amarjit Chaudhary also thanked the Punjab Government on behalf of farming fraternity for this significant project to the region.Prominent amongst those present on the occasion included Mayor Surinder Kumar, District Congress President Kuldeep Nanda, Chairman Improvement Trust Advocate Rakesh Marwaha, Acting president district youth congress Kapurthala Harnoor Singh Harji Mann, Chief Conservator of Soils Rajesh Vashisht, Conservator of Soils Mohali Mohinder Singh Saini, Divisional Soil Conservator Officer Naresh Gupta and others.