2L households to get tap water supply in 2 months

Kolkata: Despite the staggering eight-phase Assembly polls accompanied with Covid surge, the Bengal government has ensured supply of tap water connection under the 'Jal Swapno' project to at least two lakh households in the past two months taking the total figure to 15 lakh in the state since July 2020.

Though the pace of providing tap water connections has dropped in the past two months compared to that of the non-election period, currently, the work of giving connection of the same has been carried out in around 4,000 households per day.

The work was carried out in almost all districts. But the maximum number of connections were provided in Murshidabad, Nadia and Bankura. At least 1,000 to 1,500 connections out of 4,000 per day were in these three districts.

"At other times, around 10,000 to 12,000 connections used to take place per day. With the election process in place when additional work for the purpose of election needs to be done and manpower gets diverted for such works, it is obvious for the number of connections per day to fall. But despite such situations, pipeline connection for safe drinking water reached at least 2 lakh households," said an officer of the state Public Health Engineering department.

In July 2020 the Bengal government had launched the Jal Swapna scheme with a target of providing tap water connection to every household in the state by 2024 at a project cost of Rs 58,000 crore.

The plan of action to execute the task in 2021-22 fiscal is on the anvil and the officials expect that they could reach the 50 lakh-mark by the end of next fiscal if the pace in which the work has been implemented last year can be sustained.

The work that has been carried out in the past two months were all pre-sanctioned ones before the election was declared.