Water Resources Department Minister Chandra Prakash Chaudhary has said that the Government was seriously working on providing tapped water to at least half of the people of State by 2020. He said on Wednesday that almost doubling of budgetary allocation for water resources during financial year 2016-17 in comparison to 2014-15 was a testimony that government had taken issues of water supply in the State with seriousness.
“The threshold of budgetary allocation to the department in any financial year since inception of the State till financial year 2014-15 was Rs 762.71 Crores. However, we saw budgetary allocation to water resources for financial year 2016-17 increased to Rs 1,544.07 Crores. Even for financial year 2015-16, it was kept at Rs 1,154.33 Crores which was much higher than the maximum budgetary allocation to the department up to financial year 2014-15,” said Chaudhary where Water Resources department Principal Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Drinking Water and Sanitation Department Principal Secretary AP Singh and other officials of departments concerned were also present.
He said that the State was suffering from lost irrigation capabilities at the time the BJP government came into power in during last quarters of 2014.
“In order to restore their lost irrigating capacities in previous governments’ era, We have granted rejuvenation of 42 large and medium irrigation projects at a cumulative cost of Rs 1,301.35 Crores which will help irrigation facilities’ restoration for over 67,000 Hectares of land. We also granted permission of construction of 794 check dams at the cost of Rs 523.67 Crores during financial year 2015-16 which will feed irrigation requirements of 39,812 Hectares of agriculture lands,” said Chaudhary.
The Minister also said that the departments concerned were carrying out hundreds of plans to provide drinking water to households and irrigation facilities to farmers across the State. Among them, the largest water reservoir plan of Budhai in Deoghar has been approved by Central Water Commission (CWC), the Central Government agency, which has also been allotted works of preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) of as many as 31 large and middle sized irrigation projects.
“Apart from this, DPR has been prepared for filling up water reservoirs in Garhwa from river Sone through pipeline has also been prepared, project cost of which is Rs 967 Crores,” added the Minister. Replying to a question on miserable situation of rain water harvesting system, the Singh said that different verticals of department were trying their best to ensure all newly constructed buildings and future projects must have it.