The New Town water treatment plant will start supplying two million gallons per day (MGD) to Sector V from this week, an official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) that operates the plant with public health engineering department said.

The boost in water supply is likely to ease water scarcity in Sector V and adjoining areas during the peak summers, an official of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA) said.

Sector V now receives water from Tallah plant.

According to a senior NDITA official, three new filter beds — where water flown in from the Hooghly is allowed to settle as the first step of the filtration process — have been put on trial run. “This has added another 5MGD capacity to this plant which has been supplying around 20MGD since it was commissioned.”

Debashis Sen, the NDITA chairman, said the water supply will help all stakeholders in the tech township. “The water from New Town plant that we will get would be treated surface water and it will help all stakeholders in Sector V...,” said Sen.

The plant now supplies water to New Town that gets the lion share of around 12 MGD while Salt Lake receives 4 MGD per day.

Kalyan Kar, the vice-president of the Sector V Stakeholders’ Association, said there was a long-standing demand for treated surface water in Sector V. “...We are happy that we will be getting treated water from the water treatment plant in New Town.”

Intake jetties have been built at the Chitpore Lockgate to draw in the water from the Hooghly and a 10.5-km underground pipeline has been laid from the jetties to New Town.

The water enters a narrow channel in the Mission Bazaar area in Kestopur, now above the ground, but two contiguous steel plates are placed on the sides to prevent spillage and theft.

An underground channel guides the water into five ponds in the plant’s backyard. Here the water is allowed to settle for a few days. The plant then turns on its state-of-the-art system for water treatment.

The cost of the project has been estimated at over Rs 400 crore, of which Rs 291 crore has been sanctioned.