Bengal tops in providing tap water connections to households since Nov 2021

Kolkata: Bengal has topped among all states when it comes to providing tap water connections to households since November 2021, state Public Health and Engineering (PHE) minister Pulak Roy said at the Assembly on Wednesday.

"In the current fiscal till date, we have provided tap water connections to 22,61,328 households. Uttar Pradesh, where the double engine (BJP) government is at power, is the last in this list with 6,49044 connections. We are poised to be at the top by the end of this fiscal with the difference from the second place holder state (Karnataka) being over 5 lakh," Roy said in his Budget speech in connection with the PHE department.

The state government has taken up a target of providing tap water connections to 1 crore 77 lakh families by 2024 under the Jal Swapno project that was rolled out from July 6, 2020. Over 37.22 lakh families have already been covered under the project.

Apart from implementing the Jal Swapno project on a war footing, the state government has laid emphasis on water testing infrastructure as well. "In 2011, there were 128 such centres and none of them had NABL accreditation. Presently, we have 220 centres and 54 are NABL accredited," Roy added.

The health centres, panchayat offices, all types of prayer halls, anganwadi centres, ICDS centres, schools (primary, secondary, higher secondary) will be included in the project.

"We have provided training to 11,450 Asha workers and have given them test kits so that water quality is tested in households where connections have already been given. They have already started their work," Roy added.

He maintained that connections in blocks affected with arsenic and fluoride contamination has been prioritised.

"We have 28 mobile treatment units which are utilised for supply of safe drinking water during disaster or other emergency situations. In all such units, there is a provision of instant packaging of treated water in polythene packets," Roy said.

A sum of over Rs 3877.70 crore was passed as budgetary allocation to the PHE department for the 2022-23 fiscal.