All villages to get safe drinking water

 Chandigarh, August 26, 2012-In a bid to provide potable drinking water to the people in all the villages across the state, the Punjab government has embarked upon an ambitious project at the cost of Rs 1,034 crore to ensure supply of safe drinking water in 2481 partially /not covered villages within next two years.

Disclosing this here today, a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has already given clear cut instructions to the officers of the Water Supply and Sanitation Department to give top priority to the provision of safe drinking water and assured paucity of funds would not be allowed to remain bottleneck in the way of smooth execution of drinking water schemes.  

It may be recalled that by covering 10,025 villages and habitations, Punjab has emerged as the leading state of the country for providing safe and clean drinking water to the people. Similarly, the concerted efforts of the state government had resulted in providing safe drinking water in 1,925 villages partially.  

In fulfilment of its firm commitment to supply safe drinking water to the people, the SAD-BJP government had spent Rs 1,424 crore during last five years to supply potable drinking water in 7,244 villages across the state.

Continuing its spree to ensure regular and potable drinking water supply, the state government has now decided to cover 2,481 partially covered/uncovered villages within two years.

The state government was also committed to ensure the supply of clean and safe drinking water to the people in all the villages @70lpppd (Litre per person per day) by December 2013.

Likewise, the state government has also focused sharply on the quality analysis of water supplied to the villages through various sources viz. groundwater, canal based schemes and others for detecting impurities in it. Strenuous efforts were also afoot to trace the presence of uranium and other heavy metals from the analysis of drinking water samples collected by September 30. A state of the art Uranium testing laboratory equipped with ultra modern techniques was being set up by the state government in Mohali at the cost of Rs 1.25 crore.

Realising the utmost need to ensure supply of potable drinking water to the people across the state, the Chief Minister had recently constituted an expert committee to study the different aspects related to supply of safe drinking water besides suggesting corrective measures to ensure quality drinking water free from any health hazard and subsequently suggest a suitable technology and methods of intervention. 

The committee consisted of Principal Secretary Science, Technology and Environment, Punjab Karan Avtar Singh as the Chairman whereas Secretary Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sanjay Kumar would be its Member Secretary. Apart from them, Advisor and Head of Department of Science and Technology Government of India (GoI), Dr. Prasada Raju, Deputy Advisor Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation GoI, D Raj Shekhar and Chief Engineer (Central) Department of Water Supply and Sanitation, Punjab AK Sony were the other members of this committee.