The State Potable Water Minister Mantri Prasad Naithani has directed Potable Water department officials to soon ascertain the procedure for promotion and appointment to about 100 vacant posts of junior engineers. He gave this instruction while reviewing the departmental works on Friday. The Peyjal Nigam managing director Bhajan Singh informed the Minister that out of 39,142 settlements, 30,224 are fully covered, 15,884 are partially covered and 34 are experiencing affected quality- mostly in Haridwar district.
As per the National Rural Drinking Water Programme, 55 litres have to be supplied per person per day instead of 40 litres per person per day. By this standard, 4762 settlements are fully covered, 34,364 are partially covered and 34 are quality affected. Against a target of 1028 settlements, 573 have been benefited in this financial year.
The department has received about Rs307 crore under various programmes in 2014-15 and out of this Rs207 crore has been spent. The Minister directed officials to improve the functioning of the corporation and also ensure that the entire allocated budget is spent within this financial year. The Minister expressed satisfaction at the emergence of improvement in the Peyjal Nigam as compared to past years though more effort needs to be made. The Minister was informed that the corporation has till now installed about 33,000 hand-pumps in Dehradun, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.
Of these, 10 per cent handpumps are not working and steps are being taken to repair these. The Peyjal Nigam had got 1341 works approved under various heads as part of natural disaster works and a sum of Rs39.50 crore was received for these works. Out of this received fund a sum of about Rs21 crore has been spent on executing 794 works. Naithani directed officials to prepare by the first week of April an Assembly constituency-wise list of all works being executed by Peyjal Nigam, Jal Sansthan and Swajal. Additional secretary, Arjun Singh, chief engineer (HQ) Sunil Kumar and other departmental officials were also present in the meeting.