Englishbazar chairman Nihar Ghosh (right) presents a bouquet to minister Gautam Deb. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, July 4: The chairmen of the Old Malda and Englishbazar municipalities today met state public health engineering minister Gautam Deb at the circuit house here to explore the possibility of supplying filtered water to the civic areas.

The minister, who holds the housing department portfolio, also, discussed the feasi bility of building satellite townships around the congested urban sprawl here. CPM legislator from Englishbazar Samar Roy and the party?s district secretary, Jiban Moitra, were also present at the meeting.

At the end of the discussion, Deb said: ?My department can supply 20 lakh litres of arsenic-free drinking water to the two municipalities. But a new reservoir has to be built near the polytechnic college where water from the PHE plant at Mathurapur can be stored. However, the civic bodies should take the responsibility of supplying the water.?

Deb added that the civic bodies had approached him with a proposal for filtering water from the Mahananda. He said he had asked engineers of his department to assess the feasibility of the plan.

Samar Roy said the twin civic bodies mostly supplied groundwater at the rate of 32 lakh litres a day. ?Drawing so much water from the underground aquifers will lead to an environmental disaster soon.?