Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal Delves Into Issue of Water Crisis

GUWAHATI: Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal directed the Public Health Engineering Department to develop an effective mechanism to ensure the availability of safe drinking water in every household of the state in a time-bound manner.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal while reviewing the implementation of water supply schemes and Swachh Bharat Mission – Gramin with officials of the department in the presence of PHED Minister Rihon Doimary at his office conference room at Janata Bhawan also asked the department to promote community involvement for better maintenance and sustainability of the schemes.

“Safe drinking water is of prime importance for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This must be taken up as a priority activity. In Assam, there are numerous sources of water. However, due to the absence of proper supply network, many areas still have a shortage of potable water. The PHE department, therefore, should devise a strategy to maximize the presence of spot sources of water covering habitations and individual households”, Sonowal said. He also asked the department to carry out a survey of village and town areas to find out the exact requirement of piped water sources and nature of water sources being presently used for carrying out the meaningful intervention.

The officials of PHED department informed that out of 88,049 habitations in the state, 55,142 have been fully and 23,137 have been partially covered. The department has covered the habitations through Piped Water Supply Schemes and installation of spot sources. It was further informed that soon steps would be taken to cover all households through piped water supply scheme and various types of other water sources like hand pump and RCC ring well. Similarly, steps would also be taken to upgrade the basic infrastructure of the spot water sources at the community and individual level, they informed.

According to a press release, while informing about the implementation of Neer Nirmal Pariyojana, the officials said four projects have been taken up, which are under different stages of completion. The projects cover Dimoria and Chandrapur in Kamrup (Metro) along with Jorhat and Hailakandi. These projects are expected to be fully functional within March 2020. The officials also briefed Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on the progress of implementation of SBM-G in the state.

Chief Minister’s Media Advisor Hrishikesh Goswami, Legal Advisor Santanu Bharati, Principal Secretary to CM Sanjay Lohiya, Principal Secretary PHED Avinash Joshi, Secretary PHED Siddharth Singh, Chief Engineer PHED Narayan Das and other senior officials were present in the meeting.

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