Jal Swapna: 60K rural households get tap water supply

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government has ensured tap water connection to 60,000 rural households under the project "Jal Swapna" in a record time after it was launched on July 6.

A target of 30 lakh rural households across the state has been fixed to provide the connection by the end of March 2021.

Banerjee had launched the project worth Rs 58,000 crore with an aim to provide tap water connection to two crore households in Bengal in the next five years.

The work in most of the places across the state had started in war footing from the day next Banerjee had announced the same and employees of the state Public Health Engineering (PHE) department has ensured the connection to 60,000 households in most of the districts including Malda, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24-Parganas in just 20 days time despite the lockdown situation.

"We have set a target of ensuring tap water connection to at least 30 lakh households by the end of March 2021. If everything goes as planned then we can easily reach our target so that people no more have to walk four to five kilometres to fetch safe drinking water," said a senior official at Nabanna adding that they are also keeping the COVID-19 situation in mind and carrying out the work

accordingly.

Initially the areas have been identified where the infrastructure of the pipeline water supply system already exists and there is a "stand post"

common tap in a locality where people come to fetch water. "We are now extending connection from these existing pipelines to every households in an area and it is helping maximum people to reap benefits of the project at the earliest," the official said adding that the work in the second phase will be carried out in the areas where the entire pipeline water supply system has to be developed.

When contacted, the state PHE Minister Soumen Mahapatra said that the work is being carried out in such a way that maximum people will reap its benefit in minimum time.

These also include some parts of Junglemahal districts. Since there is no robust pipeline water supply infrastructure in Bankura and Purulia, a Asian Development Bank Project worth around Rs 1300 crore is going on in full swing in Bankura and tender of a JICA funded Rs 960 crore project to provide safe drinking water to 10 lakh people has been floated recently.