To accomplish the goal of 100 per cent potable piped water supply in all rural households of the State by March next year, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday virtually launched ‘Har Ghar Pani, Har Ghar Safai’ mission as a part of State Government’s campaign. With this, Punjab would become the first State in the country to achieve this distinction.
Pressing the accelerator to execute the Mission full throttle, the Chief Minister inaugurated one Mega Surface Water Supply Scheme, covering 85 villages in Moga district, 144 new water supply schemes for 172 villages, 121 Arsenic and Iron removal plants (35 inaugurated, along with 86 recently completed and dedicated to people).
The scheme will benefit more than 1.6 lakh residents from 155 villages in Amritsar, Tarn Taran, and Gurdaspur districts by helping replace groundwater with surface water supply for drinking, besides resolving the problem of arsenic affected habitations.
The scheme is being funded by World Bank, Central Government’s Jal Jeewan Mission, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and the State Budget.
Terming safe drinking water as State Government’s top priority, the Chief Minister said that the incumbent Congress Government had spent an average of Rs 920 crore annually on water supply and sanitation schemes, as against a mere Rs 219 crore by the previous SAD-BJP Government.
A total of Rs 1,450 crore had been spent on rural sanitation and rural drinking water supply since taking over in March 2017, he said, noting that 99.5 percent of the rural habitations in Punjab today have access to piped water supply. Potable piped water is being supplied to 23.71 lakh rural households (67.65 percent coverage), six lakh of which were added during COVID pandemic, he said.
He pointed out that Punjab has already been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) in both rural and urban areas, with Rs 863 crore having been spent on construction of 5.75 lakh individual rural toilets.
Expressing concern over the 1634 quality affected habitations, the Chief Minister directed the Water Supply and Sanitation Department to work in mission mode to replace groundwater with surface water supply for drinking purposes wherever feasible, and address the problem of arsenic and other heavy metals affected habitations.
He also launched a project to provide immediate relief to 54 villages of the border belt with high arsenic concentration in groundwater (more than 50ppb) as an interim measure pending the supply of surface water supply to these areas.
The Rs 4.85 crore project, to be completed by April 2021, will work on nano-material based adsorption technology of IIT Madras.
The state Water Supply and Sanitation Minister Razia Sultana said that all multi-village canal water based supply schemes are being allotted on a design, build, operate and transfer (DBOT) basis and the contractor shall be responsible for operation and maintenance of these schemes for a period of 10 years. All these projects are likely to be completed by December 2022.