Punjab Soil and 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 2,264 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 at Piplanwali village, Rana Gurjeet 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.

“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. 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,” he said.

“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 the 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,” he said.

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 the call of the day to save depleting water table, said Rana Gurjeet Singh adding that the treated sewage water could be reused in an efficient and responsible manner.

Once the project becomes operational, the farmers can also save land and labour costs with underground pipelines besides having permanent irrigation infrastructure to nurture their crops, he added.

The Minister also urged the Punjabis to conserve groundwater by adopting drip irrigation, reducing paddy cultivation as the transformation in the agriculture system was necessitated.

“The water of ponds could also be used for irrigation purposes as the State Government started this project a few years back by allotting him 23 ponds, which were being run successfully. Presently, Punjab has 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,” he said.