Silchar, Oct. 18: The Assam public health engineering department plans to set up a Rs 18.78-crore water plant in Silchar to augment the supply of potable water in the town.

The plant at Dhakai Patti will treat the water of the Barak and supply nearly 1.5 million gallons per day through a network of underground pipes.

At present, the town with a population of nearly 1.75 lakh draws six million gallons per day from the existing treatment plant at Sadarghat Road.

A senior executive engineer of the public health engineering department, Goutam Pal, today said the state government had already approved a concept paper for the new scheme.

The plan is waiting for the Centre’s nod for a grant from the Union government’s non-lapsable pool of resources.

Pal said once the concept paper received the Centre’s approval, a detailed project report would be drawn up.

Set up in 1971, the existing plant treats nearly five million gallons of water, but as the population of the town rose, the capacity was raised to another one million gallon per day in 2004 with Rs 8 crore from the Centre.

Pal said he was confident that the new treatment plant would be able meet the increasing demand as the population increases.

Under the new plant, three more overhead tanks will be built at Vivekanand Road, Hospital Road and Tarapur to take the number of such tanks to eight.

Sources at the department said it was the zeal of state public health engineering minister Gautam Roy and Silchar municipality chairperson Sushmita Dev, which helped get this project off the ground.