Punjab govt, not private players, will run water supply project: Nijjar

Local bodies minister Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar on Friday said that World Bank-funded canal water supply projects coming up in Punjab will be run by the state government and will not be handed over to private players, as being alleged by some farm leaders.

While launching a five-day stir against water pollution on Thursday, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan had alleged that the government was in the process to privatise water supply by entering into agreements with corporate houses at the behest of the World Bank.

Nijjar, who was in Ludhiana to review ongoing projects, said that the state government is working on the 24x7 canal-based water supply projects in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala. He clarified that the World Bank-backed project is a public utility service and the facilities will not be handed over to private players.

“People should not get misled. These are public utility services and the government will run the operations, not private players. We are also working to deal with pollution in water bodies,” he said.

BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) is holding the agitation at 16 places in the state including Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Sangrur. It includes a major protest at Daudhar village in Moga where Punjab’s first central water treatment plant has been set up with assistance of the World Bank to supply clean drinking water to 85 villages of the district.

Ugrahan on Thursday had alleged that the government was allowing the industry to pollute groundwater by dumping untreated waste, and was now planning to sell the treated water at hefty rates to people under the garb of the water supply project by handing over its operations to private players.