Receding water table and rising concern of severe scarcity of water in this summer made Minister Drinking Water and Sanitation Department to push for fast pacing all drinking water projects. Minister CP Chaudhary on Monday issued specific instructions to the officials of the department to expedite all water supply projects and gear up to meet the demands by additional means.
The Minister chaired a review meeting with the Secretary of the department, AP Singh; Principal Secretary of Finance, Amit Khare and Deputy Secretary of Urban Development Department, Manisha Joseph Tigga. In the meeting conducted at Nepal House, Chaudhary discussed bottlenecks in the disbursement of funds for drinking water projects as he also nudged officials to begin distribution of funds provided by Disaster Management Department.
“Hurdles in the distribution of funds were discussed and it was decided that the distribution of funds provided by Disaster Management Department would be started immediately. The Minister also asked officials that all drinking water projects must be expeditiously completed,” said a close aide of the Minister.
Notably, the department is working on two water pipeline projects—Rukka to Ranchi water pipeline and Rukka to Hatia pipeline—to bring water from Getalsud dam to Ranchi so as to balance demand-supply of water.
Taking a leaf from the centre’s ‘Yojna Banao Abhiyan’, Chaudhary asked officials to form teams and visit rural areas before the onset of summer and nip water scarcity issues in its bud. He also directed officials to start mobile ‘water testing laboratory’, to install new water purifiers at Government offices, include more water tankers in the existing fleet to supply water in drought hit areas and executing solar power driven water supply projects on mission mode.
Repairing defunct hand pumps in all divisions and taking service of retired Junior Engineers until vacant positions are filled were among the instructions issued by the Minister.