Lucknow, October 24 The Uttar Pradesh government has set December 2016 as the final deadline for completion of the ambitious ‘Ganga Jal’ project for provide of potable water in Agra, officers said Thursday.

Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica) give funds for the project would, once completion, treat the Yamuna water for consumption as drinkable in the Taj town that’s battling acute water shortage.

Officials said the head regulator of the project to ingest 150 cusec water from higher Ganga canal has already been made and also the remaining 5 % work on the settling tank would be completed by the top of 2014. Jica is giving 85 % of the value as debt, whereas the remaining 15 % is being borne by the government.

Officials told that beam casting and checking of eight wells in the project was virtually 70 % complete and the remaining work are going to be completed by March 2014. The work on the treatment plant will be complete in 2013.

Special secretary (urban development) S.P.Singh informed that to boost the capability of the the water treatment plant IIa 144 mld plant at Sikandra was under construction.

“To send the ‘bad water’ from the treatment plant to Yamuna stream, a 1,000 mm diameter and 1.8 kilometre long pipeline is planned, whereas work on the 1 kilometre long pipe, which is parallel to the Kailash temple road are going to be completed by finish of this month,” Singh informed .

He said Rs.355.71 crore has been spent on the project to this point.

The revised price of the project is estimated at Rs.2,887.92 crore, for which consent of the govt. of India has been procured.