Jammu: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, today while chairing the Apex Committee meeting of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) impressed upon the concerned that after culminating the process of tendering and allotment of works the focus of the mission should be to complete the schemes well on time, an official press release informed Monday.
It said the meeting besides the ACS, Jal Shakti Department was attended by Principal Secretary, Finance; Secretary, Rural Development; Secretary, School Education; Mission Director, JJM; Chief Engineer, Kashmir/Jammu besides other senior officers of the department.
While speaking during the meeting, the Chief Secretary highlighted the importance of identifying the sustainable water source for each scheme in order to achieve the goal of round the year ‘Nal se Jal’ for each household. He stressed on carrying out the much requisite feasibility studies to make the schemes successful in providing quality water to its consumers.
He called upon the department to make provision for senior officers to monitor the progress on each scheme and see that it completes meeting all the essential guidelines set for the water supply scheme.
He even advised earmarking a proportion of works to be monitored by the concerned Chief Engineers especially those with having ground water sources or requiring electromechanical works for their completion.
Dulloo also asked for enhancing the capacity of locals to carry out the testing of water supplied to them and the operation of the allied schemes. He called for training as many locals as possible in the local technical institutions to keep a pool of technically sound people in each village to look after their schemes. He called for enhancing the number of ‘Nal Jal Mitras’ to accelerate the frequency of testing and better operation of the schemes.
He also called for making provisions for the operation and maintenance of the schemes wherever necessary for the panchayats to be declared as ‘Har Ghar Nal se Jal’ certified. He called for increasing the IEC activities to generate awareness among the masses besides taking measures to include ‘water conservation’ in the school curriculum here as desired by the PM.
The ACS, Jal Shakti, Shaleen Kabra informed the meeting about the measures being taken to pace up the progress on this mission. He said that till date 76 percent of the households have been provided with tap connections comprising 14,23,305 households across the districts of J&K. He further apprised that around 3,27,215 households have been added in the current financial year only.
Regarding the execution of works the ACS revealed that the progress is satisfactory as 6478 (98 percent) of works already stand allotted and 5,806 (88 percent) works started on the ground and 1,571 works completed by the executing agencies.
As far as water quality monitoring is concerned it was said that around 2,04,957 tests had been conducted in different areas of the UT in 98 labs established across it. It was also revealed that 7,530 Free Testing Kits (FTKs) have been distributed in villages where more than 33,000 women have been trained to use these kits properly.
Moreover, it was highlighted that out of 22 district labs, 10 have been accredited by NABL and the rest are going to get the accreditation soon. To ensure quality it was reported that third-party monitoring, and roping in of NGOs as ISAs besides capacity building of Pani Samities is ensured across the panchayats of the UT. It was also revealed that all the water testing labs at the tehsil/Subdivision level are being inspected by Food & Drug Controller to ascertain their readiness and fitness for the task they had been established.
The committee later gave an in-principle approval to the carrying out of works on 79 schemes across the UT to include the left out 57,837 households across different districts of the UT as per the guidelines of this mission besides taking other decisions for the smooth advancement of this national mission.
