OUR CORRESPONDENT
DIGBOI: Barely two months after Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma publicly promised to fast-track Digboi’s long-delayed drinking water project, the stalled scheme has been brought back to life, with a fresh foundation stone laid on Monday and a firm two-year completion deadline announced.
The revival of the Rs-41.68-crore Digboi Town Water Supply Scheme is being seen as one of the earliest and most visible outcomes of the chief minister’s intervention in the constituency. During an election rally at Tingrai Stadium on April 2, Sarma had assured residents that the government would address the prolonged delays that had left the project languishing for years despite repeated promises and substantial public expenditure.
On Monday, local BJP MLA Suren Phukan laid the foundation stone of the restructured project at the Digboi Municipal Board premises, formally relaunching a scheme that had become synonymous with bureaucratic delays and implementation failures.
The two-year timeline is likely to be closely watched, given the project’s long record of missed deadlines.
The foundation stone-laying ceremony also coincided with Phukan’s oath-taking as an ex officio member of the Digboi Municipal Board.
Once completed, the project will be implemented through the Assam Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board and will have the capacity to treat and distribute 3.90 million litres of drinking water daily across all nine wards of Digboi town.
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