State ensures tap-water supply to 1K locations after getting requests in Duare Sarkar camps

Kolkata: Besides ensuring tap water connection to 7.2 lakh households under Jal Swapna project in only five month time, the state Public Health Engineering (PHE) department is also ensuring supply of safe drinking water at 1,000 locations after receiving requests through Duare Sarkar camps.

Initially, the state PHE department had targeted to provide tap water connections to households where the pipelines from water purification projects are existing. But, Duare Sarkar camps have helped the department to identify the areas where they need to take up projects on immediate basis to ensure sufficient supply of safe drinking water despite there being no existing pipelines.

In such cases, the PHE officers are installing the arrangement to pump out underground water to supply drinking water to the people in the area. "We had received at least 1,200 such requests through Duare Sarkar camps till its second phase. Out of it as many as 1,000 cases were addressed and needed works have been taken up," said a senior official. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had launched the Jal Swapna project in the month of July with an aim to provide tap water to every rural household in Bengal and Rs 58,000 crore was allotted for the same.

Since then tap water connection has been provided to around 7.2 lakh households. A target has been set to provide the same to at least 20 lakh households by the end of March 2021. The work is being undertaken in full swing. As a result around 1.85 lakh connections were provided only in the month of December 2020 when the number was its half - around 90,000 – in the month of November 2020.

"We are expecting to get more requests through the Paray Samadhan initiative and a plan of action has also been prepared for fast execution of the same," the official said.