As the existing water supply schemes apparently proved insufficient to meet the requirement of Katra during the pilgrim rush, the state government has deputed a team of technical experts to prepare a comprehensive “Vision Document” to meet the drinking water needs of the town. The team has been given a time frame of one month by the government to prepare the comprehensive document, which will be presented before the Union government for funding. “Experts are already on the job to prepare vision document,” said Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Sham Lal Sharma. The minister disclosed that a plan would be formulated to meet the drinking water requirement of Katra up to 2040. “Every aspect, including the increasing number of devotees with every passing year, would be taken into consideration,” he said. “At present, we are facing a shortfall of nearly 4 lakh gallons of drinking water every day in Katra town,” Chief Engineer, PHE, KK Gupta said while admitting that it was not possible to meet the current requirement from the existing sources in Katra and adjoining areas, including Reasi. “To identify new resources, we decided to prepare the vision document,” he said. Giving reasons for preparing the vision document when work on another big scheme was already going on, Gupta said the “much publicised” Rs 47.42-crore water supply scheme for Katra, which was sanctioned by the Central government on the recommendations of the special task force in 2011, was not going to solve the problem. “Hopefully the scheme is likely to be completed by the end of the current financial year but the problem will not be fully solved. So, we have to look at other viable options,” he said. Sources said due to the non-availability of water resources in Katra and adjoining localities, technical experts had made it clear that except lifting water from the Chenab, there was no other way of meeting the drinking water requirement of the holy town. Vision Document The state government has deputed a team of technical experts to prepare a comprehensive “Vision Document” to meet the drinking water needs of Katra town Katra — the base camp for pilgrims heading to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine — has been facing acute shortage of drinking water. On an average 25,000 to 30,000 pilgrims visit the town every day At present, the town is facing a shortage of nearly 4 lakh gallons of drinking water every day