Chief Secretary directs to complete 405 Water Projects by March 2018

ONI Bureau: Urban Drinking water supply projects have been put on fast track. This was known from a high level review meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi in State Secretariat today wherein Secretary Housing & Urban Development G. Mathivathanan outlined the issues and the Special Secretary Prem Kumar Jha presented the updates for discussion.

Considering the progress made so far, Chief Secretary Padhi directed the department to make full use of the water testing laboratories which have been operationalized recently at Bhubaneswar, Puri , Cuttack and Berhampur.

Padhi directed to complete another 4 labs and commission those within February, 2018. These labs would function at Sambalpur, Rourkela, Balasore and Baripada. The department was asked to develop a SOP for regular water testing from each ULB at least one in each week. Chief Secretary Padhi further directed to expedite the construction of the new water supply projects and complete as much could be possible before ensuing summer.

Time line was set to complete 405 projects by end of March and another 33 projects by end of May, 2018. A month wise completion strategy and timeline was set in the meeting. It was targeted to complete 546 projects in different phases by end of March, 2019. Target was also set to complete the Bhubaneswar Bulk water supply project covering Jatani, IIT, NISER, INFOCITY and adjoining areas under PPP mode within February, 2018.

Chief Secretary Padhi further directed to ensure 100% household connection in all the wards coming within the new project areas. It was decided to organize wide awareness campaign and water melas for motivating people to take household connection.

It was decided to involve women SHGs, Mahila Arogya Samiti ( MAS) and Ward Kalyan Samiti (WKS) as Water Monitors for door to door campaign and hand holding support to the people for taking water connection. The urban poor will not be required to pay any off-front connection charges. They will be provided the facility to pay the connection charges in easy installments.

Special Secretary Sri Jha said, “910 drinking water projects estimated around Rs.3013 cr have been taken up in different urban local bodies. This includes 752 projects taken up under State Plan, 130 projects under AMRUT, 8 under UIDSSMT, 18 under DMF and 2 projects under PPP. Out of this 268 projects have already been completed. The rate of completion has also been enhanced. Presently, 642 projects are in different stages of implementation.”