“All persons living in 1634 water qualityaffected villages in the State will be provided clean drinking water within thenext one year”, said the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
Whilepresiding over a meeting of the State Water and Sanitation Mission over theweekend, Captain Amarinder Singh said that the State Government is committed toensuring supply of potable water to all such villages in Punjab which areaffected by fluoride, arsenic and other heavy metals through both short-termand long-term mitigation measures, said the Chief Minister. Clean drinkingwater is a basic right of all individuals, be it rich or poor, and it is theduty of the State Government to ensure its supply, he stated.
Givingfurther details, a spokesperson of the State Government stated that Punjab wasspending Rs.1191 crore on undertaking such measures. All short-term measures atboth individual household level or community level would be completed in 2021,preferably by June. The long-term measures, which included new schemes based oneither surface water or Arsenic and Iron Removal Plants, would be accomplishedover the next 2-3 years.
Inaddition, the State would cover all 35 lakh rural households with potable pipedwater connections by March 2022 under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Already 22.63lakh rural households stand covered under the scheme. 3 districts, namely SASNagar (Mohali), Rupnagar and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, have achieved thedistinction of 100% coverage of all their villages, said the spokesperson.
TheDepartment of Water Supply & Sanitation would also be undertakingdevelopment of multi-level state-of-the-art laboratories for testing of waterquality across the State. A proper Management Information System was beingcreated to ensure tracking of each sample being tested by laboratories at anylevel, he added.
WaterSupply Minister Razia Sultana stated that the first 24x7 multi-village watersupply scheme based on surface water would be commissioned in January 2021 inMoga. This scheme being undertaken on DBOT basis under the World Bank aidedproject costs Rs. 232 crore and would cover 85 villages, some of which havereported traces of uranium, and would provide round-the-clock running tap waterto around 3 lakh persons of the area. In addition, many other surface-waterbased multi-village schemes were under progress in the districts of Patiala,Fatehgarh Sahib, Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Tarn Taran and would be completed byDecember 2022. She further stated that new water supply schemes were also beingproposed in the water scarcity areas of Fazilka, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur andRupnagar districts. The Department stood fully committed to achieve the missionof Har Ghar Nal, Har Ghar Jal, said the Minister.
TheMission also gave its in-principle approval for setting up of a special purposevehicle (SPV) under the Department for managing multi-village water supplyschemes in partnership with the community through representatives of the GramPanchayat Water & Sanitation Committees. The Mission also gave its consentfor creating a ring-fenced account called Water Quality Kosh for ensuringproper maintenance of water quality mitigation measures and their monitoringand testing in the rural areas of the State.
TheMission also endorsed the suggestion of Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu thatsmaller water supply schemes where water table was relatively high should betaken up for solarization of pump sets on priority. This would help in savingof electricity and also help in reducing the expenditure of the Department onpower supply.
TheDepartment also informed that the State Government had agreed to its proposalfor One-Time Settlement of dues of DWSS run schemes with PSPCL and Rs. 200crore was written off with the approval of PSERC. The Department had alsoobtained order from PSERC to treat rural water supply as a special categoryunder PSPCL with reduced tariff, thereby making the operations of water supplyschemes more sustainable. Further, Rs. 250 crore has already been paid to PSPCLfor settlement of outstanding dues, said the spokesperson.
Onthe Sanitation side, the State had already achieved 100% Open Defecation Freestatus in March 2018. Now Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (Phase II) has beenlaunched in the State which is focussing on sustenance of ODF status, solidwaste management, liquid waste management, faecal sludge management andconstruction of community sanitation complexes, he stated.
Amongthe others who attended the meeting were Water Supply Minister Razia Sultana,Health & Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, Chief PrincipalSecretary Suresh Kumar, Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan and Principal SecretaryWater Supply & Sanitation Jaspreet Talwar.