Cuttack, April 2: The Public Health Engineering Division (PHED) has initiated a slew of measures to ensure undisrupted drinking water supply in the city this summer.

The PHED and the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) have jointly planned to deploy water tankers in dry areas, install new tube wells and repair dysfunctional ones and also set up a control room to monitor distribution of safe drinking water.

"Temporary plastic tanks will be placed at more than 100 locations across the city to quench the thirst of pedestrians and city residents. Water tankers of the civic body will regularly fill these plastic tanks with drinking water. The tanks will be placed by the end of this week after a consultation with the councillors of all the 59 wards," executive engineer of PHED, Cuttack, Sushant Ghadei told The Telegraph today.

Every day, the PHED supplies around 102 million litres of drinking water drawn from various production wells through piped water system. While 44 of the 59 wards are covered under piped water system, the rest remain partially covered.

Ghadei said the measures had been planned expecting the depleting water levels during summer and consequent decrease in flow of piped water supply. "In addition to the existing 12 tankers that supply water in various areas hit with drinking water scarcity, another 15 tankers will be pressed into service," the PHED executive engineer said.

"Besides, steps are being taken to ensure all the 628 tube wells with hand pumps spread over all the 59 wards remain functional," he said.

Ghadei said a special control room would also come up by the end of next week at the PHED Cuttack division office at Chhatra Bazaar to ensure complaints related to water supply are given attention at the earliest.

So far, the CMC was responsible for supplying drinking water to 29 wards of the city (wards 1 to 29) and PHED the remaining 30 wards (wards 30-59). However, from now, the PHED will supply portable drinking water to all the 59 wards.

Member of CMC's standing committee for public health, sanitation and water supply Ranjan Kumar Biswal said: "As per the joint agreement with the PHED, we have asked them to place at least two plastic tanks in each of 59 wards to be filled up by tankers. We will provide the base frames for setting up the plastic tanks".

Biswal said the PHED has also been asked to make functional all the cold water supply units that have been set up across the city with MPLAD or MLALAD funds. There are 40 cold water outlets, but many of those are lying defunct.

To ensure supply of safe drinking water, the civic body has decided to allow the various puja committees to set up water kiosks (known in local parlance as jala chatras) at their own cost in their respective localities. "But taking permission from the municipal authority to set up kiosk has been made mandatory," Biswal said.