The Peoples’ United for Better Living in Calcutta (PUBLIC) had filed a petition alleging that KMC had selected an area for its water supply project at Bointala in Dhapa which fell under the purview of the East Calcutta Wetland Management Act (2006).

Hence the project violated the Act which says no other project could be set up there which damages the wetland.

Explaining the present status of the site, the affidavit filed by the KMC said that the area was a wetland but the entire area is not a water body. Cultivation was being carried out in other parts of the wetland by local farmers.

In his plea before a division bench of Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice P K Ghosh, KMC counsel advocate Shaktinath Mukherjee said that the water supply project was necessary as it would distribute potable water to the arsenic-prone areas.

The project aims to supply 30 million gallons of water daily to the eastern parts of the city where the hand tube-wells and deep tube-wells were the main source of water. Recent studies have proved that the arsenic content in water of that area had already crossed the permissible limit. The present arsenic content is 0.5mg per litre.

The counsel also pointed out that only 20 acres of land at Bointala in ward 58 was necessary for the project.

Of this, hardly two or three acres would be required for the pumping station.

The rest of the land would be developed and preserved as a wetland. The KMC had not found an alternative site and therefore had to use this one.

Land acquisition for the project began in 2006. Sanctioned under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the cost of the project was Rs 98.75 crore of which 35 per cent would be funded by the Union Urban Development Ministry.