PANAJI: After a prolonged wait, the work of connecting houses atop the Kadamba Plateau to the state’s water supply network has finally begun. The PWD has managed to lay a pipeline of around 4-5km starting from 2021 and has provided connections to close to 200 individual houses so far. The work of covering the entire plateau as well as proposing new overhead tanks to cater to houses located in elevated areas is presently on.
However, the official sources said that though the new pipeline is being laid to connect the plateau to the state’s water supply network, the thousands of units in the residential complexes will receive water supply only after the individual houses are catered to first.
For one, these units are located at an elevation, which will require the PWD to invest in overhead reservoirs only after which supply is possible to them.
Secondly, the Opa water treatment plants, which are presently catering to Tiswadi and Ponda talukas, will also have to be augmented to meet this added requirement. This requirement could not be taken into consideration as at the time of construction of the housing complexes atop the Kadamba Plateau, the builders had not intimidated the PWD of the number of units being constructed.
“The builders only provided an undertaking to the town and country planning department that they will make their own provision for water supply to the units and got their construction licences. Accordingly, the builders have dug borewells from which residents of these large residential complexes are getting their supply. Now, there are around 1,500 such apartment units atop the plateau and the residents are seeking PWD water connections,” said a source.
When the water supply through borewell is affected, the residents have to rely on water tankers for supply.
PWD is considering setting up a new facility at Opa which can cater to this added demand atop Kadamba plateau. There is a requirement of 10MLD plant for the plateau alone now considering the population and its future demands, sources said.
For now, the new supply connections have proven a boon to residents of the individual houses atop the Kadamba Plateau, part of which falls under the Chimbel panchayat and part under the Old Goa panchayat.
“We had to get a water tanker to fill our underground sump once every four days to meet the demand of six individuals living in the houses. Fortunately, soon after we shifted here in 2021, the PWD water connection has been supplied to us. Now we are getting the state water supply and also benefitting from the state scheme of zero bill to those who limit their usage,” said Ajit Bhonsle, a resident of the Govt Colony, Kadamba.
Though the supply is provided for up to three hours on alternate days, residents said it is ample to meet their requirement.
“All houses located around the 650 cubic meter overhead reservoir and the 2000 meter cube ground level reservoir with pumps have been provided connections,” said a PWD official.
