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| The action plan chalked out by the GWSSB aims at providing sufficient hygienic water to 2.41 crore of the population by 2011 and to 2.92 crore population by the end of the next decade in 2021.
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| The master plan, which aims at providing piped water to 135 cities and 8,215 villages of the state, will cover all urban and rural areas of Kutch and Saurashtra that have been facing a severe water crisis for the past few years.
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| In Saurashtra and Kutch alone, 5,825 villages and 100 cities will be covered under the master plan.
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| The other major districts of the state that will benefit from the project are Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha.
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| So far, the GWSSB has succeeded in providing drinking water within the stipulated time limit to villages in the Bhal area of Ahmedabad along with villages in Bhavnagar, Amreli, Junagadh and Rajkot districts of the Saurashtra region.
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| A project for providing 200 million litres per day (MLD) water from the Maliya branch canal of Kutch district is at present under execution, said officials of the GWSSB.
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| So far, GWSSB has been able to provide drinking water to 191 villages and six cities and by December 2005, the board says, it will provide piped drinking water to 949 villages and 10 cities.
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| Project works for 4,373 villages and 47 cities out of the total 8,215 villages and 135 cities are at various levels of implementation, the GWSSB said.
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| Work on the Narmada canal-based 835 km-long pipeline for Saurashtra and Kutch has been completed in the first stage of the project.
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| In the second stage, work is one to lay pipelines over a length of 197 km for Saurashtra and Kutch.
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| In the third stage of the project, tenders have been invited for the main pipeline over 57 km that will feed water to the Kadi, Kalol, Mehsana and Chanasma belt.
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| In the fourth stage, that will cover pipelines over 1,421 km, cities and villages joining Surendranagar, Dwarka, Rajula, Veraval, Bhuj-Netra, Khijadia Moti-Khavdi and Khambaliya will be taken up, the GWSSB said.
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| In this sector, the board has already started work on a 310 km stretch, where pipelines are being laid between Ratanpur-Khambaliya and Khijadia Moti-Khavdi to provide Narmada water to Jamnagar district.
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| The government claims that with Narmada water being made available to deep pockets of the state, 330 lakh man-days will be saved per year through the ambitious project.
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| Also, the government will actually save Rs 311 crore every year that it spends on health.
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| With poor drinking water facilities, people of parched areas often fall prey to water borne diseases.
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| According to a study, Rs 180 crore is spent per year for treatment of water-borne diseases. |
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