The World Bank Implementation Support Mission on Wednesday lauded the State Government for providing “improved and sustainable” sanitation services to the rural population in Punjab.
“The State has achieved fully covered status and regarded as one of the best performing in terms of sanitation coverage,” stated a Mission spokesman. A World Bank implementation support mission led by Srinivasa Rao Podireddy conducted the survey from November 11-20 to review the implementation progress towards achievement of Project Development Objective (PDO), review of implementation arrangements and achievement of physical and financial targets besides availability of funds for smooth implementation of the activities.
The Mission also reviewed the progress on action points listed in previous mission, identify any issues impinging on progress and agree on plan to address the outstanding issues. The findings of mission and its key observations were discussed by the World Bank team with the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in a specially convened meeting recently.
The Mission hailed the state government by asserting that there were no pending issues and the state government has been advancing funds liberally to the project due to which there was no shortage of funds, said an official spokesman. The project for imparting improved and sustainable rural water supply and sanitation services to the rural population has made remarkable achievement and the fully covered status was close to 100 per cent while at start it was 43 per cent in March 2006, he said.
Punjab is also regarded as one of the best performing states in terms of sanitation coverage which was over 70 per cent, and added that it has almost 100 per cent covered villages with protected water supply. Just 45 villages have left against more than 12,000 villages, he added. It may be recalled the WB delegation had visited the state to review the progress of Rs 1,280 crore World Bank aided Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project during which it visited all the 116 villages covering 22 districts under the WB Water Supply and Sanitation Project.