Chandigarh, July 3: In the 56th meeting of Water Supply and Sewerage Board which held under the Chairmanship of Haryana Chief Minister, Sh Manohar Lal here today, as many as 795 new drinking water supply schemes costing Rs 834.10 crore were approved to augment drinking water supply in urban and rural areas of the State. This also includes 134 new urban water supply and sewerage schemes at a cost of Rs 104.27 crore.
Haryana Public Health Engineering Minister, Dr Banwari Lal, and Chairman, Haryana State Commission for Safai Karamcharis, Sh Krishan Kumar were also present in the meeting.
An amount of Rs 801.48 crore for 286 already approved works for the current financial year also got confirmed in the meeting, for the acceleration of works on the flagship programmes of Public Health and Engineering Department in Rural and Urban area of the State.
Identify water logged areas or pockets in rural as well as urban areas of the State
The Chief Minister directed to identify water logged areas or pockets in rural as well as urban areas of the State where water logging occurs in every rainy season so that proactive measures could be taken to mitigate the issue of water logging. He asked to constitute a core group of officers of the concerned departments to deliberate upon the issue according to the different areas and prepare plans for the effective utilization of water-logged land in fisheries, construction of ponds and water bodies, irrigation etc. He also directed that besides cleaning of ponds, possibilities should also be explored for the utilization of pond soil for different purposes.
Works for water supply and sewerage system in eight Mahagram villages completed, in progress at 29 villages
It was also informed in the meeting that work for the water supply and sewerage system in eight Mahagram villages has already been completed. At present, works in 29 Mahagram villages are in progress and out of these, work in 10 such villages would be completed by December 2023. For the rest of the villages, an impetus has been given to escalate the pace of work. It was further informed that field officers of Public Health and Engineering Department and Development and Panchayats Departments have been directed to work in coordination for repair and restoration of streets damaged during laying of water supply and sewerage pipelines on priority basis.
Dashboards developed to show status of STPs installed and status of water allocated for each rural habitation
The Chief Minister was apprised that a dashboard has been developed on the Public Health Engineering Department website to show status of STPs installed by all concerned departments. Apart from this, monitoring of utilization of treated waste water is being done through a portal recently launched by Haryana Water Resources Authority. Similarly, another dashboard has been developed on the department website depicting the status of water allocated in Liters Per Capita Per Day (LPCD) for each rural habitation of Haryana.
Mapping of 25.22 lakh water supply connection completed in rural areas
It was informed that to increase revenue collection on operation and maintenance of urban water supply and sewerage schemes in the State, bills for water supply and sewerage facilities are being sent through SMS on mobile phones for timely information of consumers. Besides, consumers have also been given the option of payment of bills through various parameters and cashless options. It was also informed that linking of water supply connections with Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) ID is under progress and out of 28.22 lakh connections, mapping of 25.22 lakh connections has been completed in rural areas.
Among those present in the meeting included Chief Secretary, Sh Sanjeev Kaushal, Chief Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Sh D.S Dhesi, Additional Chief Secretary, Development and Panchayats Sh Anil Malik, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Dr. G. Anupama, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Engineering, Sh. A.K Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Sh V. Umashankar, Chief Administrator, Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran Sh Ajit Balaji Joshi, Commissioner and Secretary, Irrigation and Water Resources Department Sh Pankaj Agarwal, Engineer in Chief, Public Health Engineering Department Sh Asheim Khanna, Engineer in Chief, Irrigation and Water Resources Department Sh Satbir Singh Kadian and other senior officers of various departments.