New Delhi, April 5: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday paid a courtesy call on Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. During the meeting, the Chief Minister requested the Union Finance Minister to finance an amount of 1,774 crores for the Saung Dam drinking water project under the special assistance of the Government of India for capital expenditure.

He said that this project would solve the drinking water problem of Dehradun, according to an official release. The Chief Minister said that in Dehradun city and its suburbs, drinking water is being arranged mainly through tube wells, as a result of which the groundwater level is continuously declining.

Due to the increasing population of Dehradun, the demand for drinking water is continuously increasing rapidly, due to which the present drinking water supply system will not be able to meet the future drinking water demand.

In view of this problem and to provide continuous drinking water facilities in future, the 'Saung Dam Drinking Water Project' is proposed on Saung river, a tributary of the river Ganga. The total cost of the proposed project is Rs.2021 crore, the release said.

The Chief Minister said that with the construction of the project, 150 M.L.D. Drinking water will be available to about 10 lakh population of Dehradun city and its suburban areas through 'Gurutva'.

After the construction of the project, the dependence on tube wells for drinking water systems will almost end, due to which there will be a massive reduction in groundwater exploitation, as a result of which there will be an increase in the groundwater level, there will be a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases and in future new tube wells and operations on them will be reduced. There will also be a massive reduction in maintenance-related expenditures.

Apart from this, the construction of the project will create a lake, which will promote tourism in the area, which will generate employment and increase the income of local citizens. The environment will also benefit from the construction of the lake. Another major advantage of this project is post-control, consequent to the project's construction.

About 15,000 population of 10 villages of the Dehradun district will be provided protection from the annual flood in Saung River. The project is significant for the water supply of Dehradun city, all necessary technical forest land transfer stage-1 and other necessary approvals related to the project have been received from the concerned departments/ministries.

The expenditure (Rs. 247 crores) for the rehabilitation and resettlement of the families affected by the project will be borne by the State Government, an official release said.

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