Irrigation and Public Health Minister Ravinder Singh Ravi, said that Tarafil filter would be provided to about 3000 Primary schools under ‘Jalmani’ scheme by the end of this year to ensure pure drinking water to the students in the State. He said that 1650 Panchayats had been provided with Field Test Kits (FTK) for checking the water quality and remaining Panchayats would get it by this year. FTK would also be provided to 100 Government Senior Secondary Schools in the same period. He was presiding over a review meeting of Irrigation and Public Health Department, here today.
He said that State Government has provided Rs. 4 lakh per lab to District Water & Sanitation Committee’s (DWSM) for the upgradation of existing 17 Water Quality Labs in the State. Besides, 6.25 lakh per lab had been provided to DWSM’s for setting up of 12 Sub-Divisional labs in the State. He said that all the 17 Water Quality Labs were equipped with management information system. A sum of Rs. 2014.18 lakh had been received from Government of India as grant-in-aid under National Rural Drinking Water Supply programme (NRDWP) and Rs. 477.70 lakh were spent during 2010-11. Minister said that State Government is committed for providing safe drinking water to every household. There were 53205 habitations in the State and out of these 41,418 have already been provided with drinking water facilities till April, 2011, while 11730 have been covered partially and only 57 habitations are yet to be covered. State Government had fixed a target to cover 2500 out of these in this financial year. More than 14,000 habitations had been provided drinking water facility in last three years. IPH department had been organizing various campaigns by including Panchayats and NGO’s to create awareness amongst the masses to keep water resources clean and safe besides motivating then for water conservation, rain water harvesting, and rejuvenation of traditional water resources etc. He said that five NGO’s had been involved for awareness generation in 861 panchayats in the State. Out of total 3243 panchayats, village water and sanitation committees had been constituted in 2484 panchayats.
He said that State Government had proposed to hand over all 7940 water supply schemes completed so far to the Panchayati Raj Institutions for operation and maintenance for which Jal Rakshak were being engaged. In the second phase 2503 water supply schemes had been identified to be transferred to PRIs.
Ravinder Singh Ravi said that Swan river flood management and integrated land development project phase-II were being implemented under flood management programme in district Una. He said that State Government had made budget provision of Rs. 80 crore for this project during the current financial year. State Government had earmarked Rs. 14 crore for channelization of Bata River in Sirmaur district which was also being implemented under flood management programme.
IPH Minister said that Hydrology Project-II had been approved for the State with an estimated cost of Rs. 49.50 crore to improve and develop an integrated and comprehensive hydrological data collection and information system for improved productivity and cost effectiveness of water related investments.
Narender Chauhan, Principal Secretary, IPH, Shri R.K Sharma, Engineer-in-Chief and other senior officers of the department were also present in the meeting.
