A day after the Jharkhand High Court rapped the State Government for the severe shortage of drinking water in rural areas, Drinking Water and Sanitation Department Minister CP Choudhary put up a brave face, saying a long term solution has to be worked out in this direction.
“The shortage or crisis of drinking water is only seasonal and has been appearing during summers in State since some years. Main reason of it is that ground water level has been dropping year after year, and we will have to find long term solutions to it. The department officials have been trying their best to get out of the situation and we will ensure adequate drinking water for entire State during this summer,” said Drinking Water and Sanitation Department Minister CP Choudhary on Thursday.
He added that departments like Urban Development and Rural Development had also to play a major role to tackle the issue by strictly implementing rain water harvesting measures during rains.
“We alone can’t achieve the target. However, we are trying our best and will reach out to some long term solution soon,” said Choudhary.
On the other hand, Department Chief Engineer came out with another explanation for the entire issue which has drawn attention of Jharkhand High Court. “Though the matter is sub-judies and I will not comment over what honourable Court has observed. However, we are moving in a right direction to make sure that no one in the State suffers due to shortage of water. We have formed a team of officers to visit water crisis prone areas to evaluate ground reality.
The team will start inspection from next Monday to address the issue,” said Chief Engineer Ramesh Kumar on Thursday.
When asked about why such teams were formed if he was so sure of situation being not so pathetic, Kumar said that the department used to go for routine inspection and visits from Monday were only a part of it.
He also said that Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma was going to hold a meeting of engineers in districts on Friday through video conferencing and instruct them to take proper action in this regard.
Notably, Verma had appeared before the Jharkhand high court on Wednesday in a Public Interest litigation (PIl) filed in 2011 drinking water crisis in the state. Kumar said that Verma had asked officials to provide water tankers in rural areas across the State facing water crisis.