Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma inspects progress of Sohiong project

A REPORTER

SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma inspected the ongoing works of the PHE (Public Health Engineering) Department under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) at Sohiong in East Khasi Hills District, on Saturday.

Accompanied by the local MLA and PHE Minister Samlin Malgniang, the Chief Minister along with a team of department officials, also made household visits and interacted with the beneficiaries to assess the implementation of JJM in the area. Now, piped-water connections have proved beneficial for most of these villagers who have been depending on water being manually collected from far-flung water sources till date.

The Chief Minister was optimistic that with the ongoing pace, the State should be able to achieve the targets set forth and provide functional tap-water connections to all rural households across the State by 2022.

"I would like to thank our Prime Minister and the Ministry of Jal Shakti for the financial and technical supports in implementing this programme in our State. We have a target of almost 2 lakh households in this financial year. The PHE Department, under the leadership of our current Minister, is doing a tremendous job to pursue the completion of all works mandated under the programme and move forward aggressively even under such difficult circumstances following the COVID-19 pandemic," the Chief Minister said.

The 'Jal Jeevan Mission' is a project funded by the Ministry of Jal Shakti. It aims at providing safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections to all households across rural India by 2024. The programme will also implement source-sustainability measures as mandatory elements, such as recharge and reuse through grey water management, water conservation, and rainwater harvesting measures.

Meghalaya has set the target of December 2022 for 'Functional Household Tap Connections' (FHTC) to every rural household in the State.

Later in the day, the Chief Minister also visited the site of the 'Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme' at Mawphlang; and interacted with officials of the department. 

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