Cuttack: The Public Health Engineering Organisation has worked out an action plan for drinking water supply this summer .

A Pheo official said the plan had been chalked out for a possible fall in the water-levels that result in decline in flow of piped water supply.

According to the plan, plastic tanks will be placed in areas that lack water supply pipelines and additional tankers will be pressed into service to meet the demand.

Every day, Pheo supplies around 102 million litres (MLD) water drawn from various production wells through pipes. While 44 of Cuttack's 59 wards are covered under piped water supply, the rest are partially covered.

The Pheo official said an additional supply of more than 1.3 lakh litres per day has been planned for this summer.

Pheo's Cuttack division executive engineer Sushant Ghadei said on Tuesday that they were taking steps to supply the additional water at 130 locations from March 15.

"We aim to place 1,000 litre plastic tanks at these locations to provide additional drinking water. The tanks will be placed on iron frames provided by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation," Ghadei said.

To provide uninterrupted drinking water through these tanks, 15 of them will be pressed into service in addition to the existing fleet of 12 tankers that supplies water in different areas, he said.

The locations have been chosen to ensure that there are at least two plastic tanks in each of the 59 wards.

Additional plastic tanks will be placed in various locations of some wards where there is shortage of water supply due to decrease in flow of piped water detected last year.

Supply of drinking water by placing tanks in locations spread over the city assumes significance as the civic body had discontinued setting up water kiosks or jala chhatras across the city last year.

"The decision was taken after there were complaints that the assigned persons were not present during most parts of the day despite setting up the water kiosks," a civic official said.

"However, the civic body has allowed puja committees to take permission from the municipal authorities and set up jala chhatras at their own expense in their respective localities," the civic body official said.

A Pheo official said a survey was being conducted across Cuttack to ensure that all the 600 odd tube wells with hand pumps spread over all the 59 wards are functional.