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| Although crores spent yet safe drinking water a 'distant dream' | | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 8: Even after expenditure worth crores of rupees under several centrally sponsored and other schemes by Public Health Engineering (PHE) department the dismal picture of drinking water supply in Jammu and Kashmir continued with people crying hoarse for the safe potable water. As per official statistics, nearly 5150 habitations spread across the state still are without safe drinking water supply thereby putting lives of thousands of people at stake, who are exposed to water borne diseases. As per reports most of the schemes are running behind schedule mostly because of inefficient handling by the officers on ground. And a
central audit too has revealed that a vital flagship scheme of the Government of India aimed at providing safe drinking water to rural
population has been poorly implemented. The audit report by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) has revealed that Jammu and Kashmir has reported low (less than 50 per cent) achievement against the targets under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). As per the government data, there are 14028 habitations in the State, out of which only 8878 have been covered to ensure safe drinking water. Even the census 2011 has pin pointed towards gloomy picture of the potable/drinking water front as it had revealed that only 34 per cent of the total population has access to safe drinking water with 64 per cent of the total population in the state uses tap water for drinking but only 34.7 per cent get it from treated source, rest of the population uses water from hand-pumps, rivers, canals and other conventional water resources. Here it also need to mention that as per officials concerned target is
to cover now 1407 new habitations benefiting over 11 lakh populations by end of this fiscal. "The Government has also proposed to install 3350 Mark-II Hand Pumps in the vulnerable locations to meet the drinking water requirements, they said. |
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