Arun Singh
Jammu, Jan 25: The apathetic attitude of the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department can be gauged from the fact that the department that, instead of making over 100 non-functional filtration plants operational which were lying defunct for the past many years, and constructing new filtration plants, it has spent over Rs 9 cr in constructing pre-settling tanks due to the 'supply' of un-filtered drinking water to people. Sources told Early Times that the lacklustre attitude of PHE department was visible from the fact that it had not prepared any annual plan for the construction of modern filtration plants for each supply scheme in the state. However, instead of constructing new filtration plants and making 100 non-functional filtration plants operational in Kashmir division, the department had constructed 60 pre-settling tanks at the cost of Rs 9.09 cr, sources informed. They said that by not constructing new filtration plants and making non-operational pants operational, un-filtered water was being supplied to lakhs of people from 341 water supply schemes. "It was observed that at some places in the state, the raw water was being collected from open sources directly by the PHE Department and supplied to people without passing it through the filtration plant," sources alleged. Shockingly, the percentage of unsatisfactory results for microbiological water tests carried out randomly by the government medical college, Jammu, in respect of 10 districts of Jammu division has been found between 53 pc to 68 pc as per the data collected during the past many years, sources disclosed. "But the fact of the matter is that the PHE department has failed to take necessary steps to provide filtered water to people," sources said. |
