Bengal tops nation in providing tap water connections
KOLKATA: Bengal has bagged the first position in providing tap water connections to rural households among all other states by supplying piped water to over 1.98 lakh households in the month of May alone. The state presently has covered nearly 42 lakh households, according to data provided by the state Public Health and Engineering (PHE) department.
Bengal has provided 198445 connections in the month of May followed by Karnataka with 185304 connections and Tamil Nadu with 159208.
BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh providing 84660 and 48607 connections respectively have ranked far behind. The total number of households in Bengal that has been covered till the inception of the project is 41,97,361.
The PHE department is working on a mission mode to ensure tap water connection to 1 crore 77 lakh families under Jal Swapna project by the end of 2024. The project kicked off from July 2020.
The Mamata Banerjee government has achieved a major milestone by becoming the top state in the country in providing tap water connections to households in the financial year 2021- 22.
Bengal has provided over 23.37 lakh connections in this fiscal, well ahead of the second and third rankers Odisha and Bihar that provided 17.47 lakhs and 17.39 lakh connections respectively. BJP-ruled Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh were far behind, providing over 9.51 and 6.57 lakh connections respectively. The state Public Health Engineering (PHE) department which is implementing this project of providing tap water connection has taken up 2941 new and augmentation piped water supply schemes at a sanctioned cost of Rs 8399.50 crore in the financial year 2021-22.
In the recently concluded fiscal, around 56000 schools and 38000 anganwadi centres have been provided with running water facilities.
The state PHE minister Pulak Roy said: "We are following directions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and executing the work to ensure that people get the benefits of the project at the earliest."
