JAIPUR: Chief minister Vasundhara Raje on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for phase-II of drinking water project in Nagaur district. The project would cover 968 villages in seven cities providing relief from fluoride contaminated water in these areas.

Under the project, a treatment plant with a capacity of 2,500 lakh litre water per day would be set up in Nokha Daiya in Bikaner. It will be connected with a 491-km-long pipeline with Indira Gandhi Cannal to Nagaur. The project will lift water upto 454 metre from its source.

“Nagaur is one of the districts worst-affected by fluoride. It was our commitment to provide safe drinking water here,” said Raje. As per the government estimates, about 35% of the villages affected with the fluoride water are in Nagaur district.

Taking a swipe at Congress for ignoring development in Nagaur, Raje claimed that this water project would be completed before April 2018. “We are taking forward the water project from the same stage where we left it in 2008. We started the phase I which is going on and now we are starting phase II. Had Congress government continued, people of Nagaur would have received pure water way back,” she added.

Starting her three-day tour under “Apka Zila Apki Sar kar”, Raje opened the coffers for the district. Along with the water project, she announced additional schemes of Rs 600 crore for the district.

Raje also announced that her government would start a massive watershed programme in 3,000 villages of the state from January 26, 2016. Ponds would be dug up in these water starve districts in six months.

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