Centre's passivity to release funds delays Bengal's clean water drive
Kolkata: The inordinate delay by the Centre and its "autocratic attitude" in releasing funds to supply potable water to households in Bengal has increased misery of the rural populace across the state.
Similar administrative faux pas over release of funds by the Centre, without consulting the state, to supply filtered water in the arsenic hit areas has also increased the ordeal of people.
The Centre has recently claimed that Rs 573.36 crore out of the total Rs 1305.70 crore that it has provided for potable water in arsenic and fluoride affected areas remained unspent without highlighting the actual reasons behind the same.
"The amount was released in three subsequent fiscals since 2016-17, specifying 186 schemes where it has to be spent, without consulting the state government. As a result the state government was left with no option but to utilise the unspent amount in any project. Repeated requests to allow its utilisation for other schemes in arsenic belts had only fallen into deaf ears. Now, after two long years the Centre has given its nod and the money is getting utilised for setting up of 300 community water purification plants (CWPPs) in arsenic affected Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, North Dinajpur and North 24-Parganas districts at a cost of Rs 320 crore with 50 percent contribution by the state. It will benefit lakhs of people in more than 1,000 habitations," said a senior state government official adding that remaining amount of Rs 573.36 crore is getting spent for other schemes including two major surface water projects for arsenic prone Bongaon, Bagda, Ranaghat, Swarupnagar, Basirhat and Baduria in North 24-Parganas.
Again, the second installment, that is Rs 523.36 crore, of Rs 993.88 crore was released by the Centre only in the first week of March and the first installment of Rs 404 crore in October 2019 though its scheduled time was in April. Despite delay in releasing the fund, the Centre has claimed that Rs 565.51 is lying unspent with the state when nationwide lockdown was imposed just after the second installment was released in March. But the state Public Health Engineering department left no stone unturned and has almost utilised the money, with equal share of contribution by the state, by providing tap water connection under Jal Swapna scheme in 85,000 households so far.
It has also been utilised in major water treatment projects at Falta-Mathurapur, Habra-Gaighata and Gangarampur. The "real-time" utilisation of these funds will be uploaded in the Centre's dedicated portal in the next 15 days.
"It shows that the state was helpless as the Centre had not only delayed in releasing funds but also did it in an autocratic method for arsenic prone areas," said the state PHE minister Soumen Mahapatra.
The state government is targeting to provide tap water connection in 55.60 lakh households by March 2021 at a project cost of Rs 2,000 crore. For this, the state government will be providing Rs 1000 crore and the remaining will be utilised out of Rs 1610.76 crore of the Centre's new allocation that it will give in four phases in 2020-21 fiscal.
The state government is also chalking out a plan to utilise 50 percent of Rs 4,412 crore of 15 th Finance Commission Grant for water and sanitisation.
Top brass of the state PHE and Panchayat department will be holding a meeting on Thursday to utilise it for "operation maintenance" of total 2,200 schemes that costs around Rs 800 crore per year.
The state at present supplies 55 litre per person per day to 3 crore rural populace and targeted 71 percent coverage of piped water supply by December 2020. At present Rs 14,000 crore worth project is ongoing in Bengal to supply potable water that creates around 2,000 mandays work every day. It includes a Rs 3,500 crore project that will complete in 2020-21 fiscal.
