Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said that the works of providing pure drinking water to the urban and rural population of the state should be completed within time-limit. According to the targets set in the roadmap prepared for self-reliant Madhya Pradesh, the works of all the tap water schemes in the state should be completed.
The Chief Minister said that engineers should be posted in villages for better maintenance of the schemes. He directed to encourage the concerned agency and officers-employees for timely completion of works in mega project works. Chief Minister Shri Chouhan said that strict steps would be taken against the guilty by fixing the responsibility for the delay in works. After the completion of the work of tap water schemes, special Gram Sabhas will be organised in the villages and the village will be declared as “Har Ghar Jal” category village. On completion of the construction works of the scheme, the scheme will be transferred to the concerned Panchayat. The officials of the Village Water and Sanitation Committee will also interact with the villagers. Letters of gratitude will also be sent to Prime Minister Shri Modi by the villagers for implementing such an ambitious and useful scheme.
Chief Minister Shri Chouhan was reviewing the activities of Public Health Engineering Department in Mantralaya on Monday. Chouhan said that setting up of pipelines at places where water sources are not successful is an irregularity. Punitive action will be taken in such cases.
The engineers of the department should also make regular visits to their workplace. There should be continuous review of the implementation of the plans. Minister of State for Public Health Engineering Brijendra Singh Yadav, Chief Secretary Iqbal Singh Bains were present.
Chouhan said that such a rural engineers should be posted at the village level, who have knowledge about electricity connection, drinking water supply system, management related to irrigation pumps, technical aspects of housing construction etc.
Pump and valve operator training can be given in a matter of days. Jobless youths should be entrusted with the responsibility of maintenance of drinking water supply scheme and other schemes in villages by providing them the benefit of short training courses of three to six months for these works. In Madhya Pradesh, an initiative should be taken to prepare a model in this area and implement it. For this, the Rural Development Department should discharge the role of the nodal department. In big villages, more than one youth can also bear this responsibility.
Drinking water system in Madhya Pradesh
Additional Chief Secretary Public Health Engineering Shri Malay Shrivastava told through presentation that in the three-year roadmap, the availability of water supply through pipeline in rural areas in Madhya Pradesh by March 2021 had gone up to 30.55 percent, which is 37.10 percent at present. The target is to bring it up to the national average of 45.57 percent and achieve even more. An amount of Rs 42 thousand 643 crore is being spent on various tap water schemes in the state. In the last financial year, against drinking water connection up to 26 lakh households, connections were given in 19 lakh 89 thousand houses, which is three fourth of the target. Against the target of providing drinking water to all about 122 lakh rural households of the state by the year 2024, 45 lakh 10 thousand families have been provided drinking water by December last. Drinking water will be available to 52 lakh 62 thousand families in the next three months. In order to fulfill the target of training 50 thousand mechanics in the next three years for repair works related to taps and electricity, training ITIs and other institutions have been started through Madhya Pradesh State Skill Development and Employment Generation Board. In Jal Jeevan Mission, 9 thousand 351 works are in progress in the group tap water scheme of 25 thousand 399 villages in village and FHTC (Functional Household Tap Connection) action plan. 8 thousand 176 works are in progress in the single village tap water scheme of 26 thousand 186 villages. It has also been arranged that for the implementation of the scheme, the contractor will apply online through Jal Nigam for permission to dig the road. This permission will be granted after the alignment test and only after that the contractor will use the road cutter. After laying the pipeline, necessary repair of the road will be done by the contractor. To restore the road to its previous condition, the amount provided in the DPR of the scheme will be paid.