Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the officials supervising the implementation of Mission Bhagiratha drinking water programme to complete all important works before onset of the monsoon season, although the year-end has been fixed as the target.
“There’s no dearth of funds for the drinking water project likely to become a model in the country, since several financial institutions have extended loans of about ₹30,000 crore. Execution of works alone is the task now. Coordinate with various departments concerned so that there’s no delay,” the Chief Minister told the officials at a lengthy review meeting held here on Tuesday.
Vice Chairman of Mission Bhageeratha V. Prashanth Reddy, Chief Secretary S.P. Singh, Chairman and Managing Director of TS-Genco/TS-Transco D. Prabhakar Rao, CMDs of TS-SPDCL and TS-NPDCL G. Raghuma Reddy and A. Gopal Rao, Engineer-in-Chief B. Surender Reddy, Mineral Development Corporation Chairman S. Subhash Reddy, representatives of work agencies and other attended the meeting.
The Chief Minister enquired progress of component-wise works such as intake wells, water treatment plants (WTPs), pipelines, construction of electrical sub-stations and others.
He instructed the District Collectors to take initiative for getting clearances linked to pipeline laying from forest, national and state highways, panchayat raj roads, railways, irrigation and other departments.
Officials explained to the Chief Minister that 11 out of 19 intake wells were completed already and the remaining were in different stages of completion.
Intake wells
All the intake wells were expected to be completed by March-end and they would be in a position to pump water from April.
On the progress of WTPs the officials explained that 3 out of a total of 50 were completed so far and another 10 were nearing completion with over 75% work done already. Similarly, over 50% work was over in case of another 11 WTPs, over 25% in case of 20 more and in the remaining 6 WTPs work done was less than 25%.
However, representatives of the work agencies said they would complete all WTPs by June-end.
The Chief Minister asked the work agencies to complete works in time and claim 1% incentive. Representatives of seven States had visited Telangana to study the implementation of the drinking water project launched by the Prime Minister in August last year.
