The residents of Mirik, a tiny hill town and a popular tourist destination in the Darjeeling hills, can get piped drinking water from the civic body in two years.

On Tuesday, work for the house-to-house drinking water supply started at the hill town. The project, taken up under the Amrut 2.0 (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation) scheme of the Centre at an estimated cost of around ₹200 crore, will be executed by the state public health engineering (PHE) and the municipal engineering departments in association with the local civic body.

“The drinking water project will benefit around 50,000-odd residents in the civic area, along with hundreds of tourists who visit every day. We aim to provide drinking water in each household and other establishments of Mirik within the next two years,” said L.B. Rai, who chairs the board of administrators of Mirik municipality.

Under the project, water will be drawn from Rambhang, a hilly stream located around 5km from Mirik and stored in a reservoir to come up in a centralised location of the town.

“There, the water will be treated and will be distributed across the civic area through a network of pipelines. It was a longstanding demand of the residents that has been finally met,” said a source.

The initiation of the work, including the laying of a foundation stone, was made in the presence of Anit Thapa, the chief executive of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.

Mirik civic area is spread across nine wards. In 2017, it was the first urban local body in the hills where Trinamool had managed to secure a majority and came to power.

In 2022, the tenure of the elected board ended. Since then, the municipality has been run by a board of administrators.

Over the past few years, the state government, along with the civic body, has taken up several infrastructure projects to provide better civic services to residents and tourists. Located around 50km from here, Mirik draws tourists to its Sumendu Lake, lush green tea estates and pine forests.

“There are indications that Mirik civic polls might be held next year. It is evident that Trinamool and its ally, the Anit Thapa-led Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha, want to project development,” said a hill political veteran.