Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, has commissioned a N4.2 billion water supply scheme in Patigi, the headquarters of Patigi local government area of Kwara State.

The project has the capacity to deliver five million litres of water daily to Patigi community and its environs.

The minister also announced plans by the federal government to establish a solar farm in future to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the facility.

Speaking during the commissioning and official handover of the project to the Kwara State government in Patigi, Adamu said, “This project has been completed to the highest level of quality at a total cost of N4.2 billion. The scheme has a total design capacity of five million litres per day and is meant to serve over 200, 000 people resident in Patigi town and neighbouring communities. The quality of the treated water from the scheme has been subjected to laboratory tests and established to be within national and international standards for drinking water.”

The minister said the water scheme has over 35 kilometres of distribution network pipelines with about 32 fetching points distributed within the network, among other components.

He charged the state government to build the capacity of the state water board and its staff to ensure regular maintenance of the facility even as he said the Federal Ministry of Water Resources had ensures the contractor trained operational staff of the state's water board on various aspects of running the scheme.

Etsu Patigi, Alhaji Umaru Bologi, described the project as laudable and appealed for its extension to communities within 10 kilometres ratio.

“We are indeed grateful for this laudable project , we wish to ask for extension to communities within10km ratio for villages around Patigi town to benefit from the project ,” he said.

Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who was represented by the commissioner for water resources, Hajia Riskat AbdulKarim, said the water scheme would go a long way in meeting the yearnings of the community.