The Telangana government has decided to extend Mission Bhagiratha project intended to provide piped drinking water to all households in rural and semi-urban areas of the State to urban areas now by unveiling its plan to cover 35 urban local bodies (ULBs), including five municipal corporations and 30 municipalities.
Administrative sanction to the project with three packages was given on Friday with an estimated cost of Rs. 4,403 crore. However, the water supply project to 35 ULBs would be implemented on a modified annuity mode of contract basis.
In response to the proposals sent by the Engineer-in-Chief (Public Health) for taking up water supply improvement schemes in 35 ULBs, including 10 towns covered under Atal Mission For Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme for integrating with Mission Bhagiratha, the government has given its nod.
The 10 towns/cities covered under AMRUT -- Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Ramagundam, Khammam (all corporations), Mahabubnagar, Adilabad, Nalgonda, Suryapet and Miryalguda (all municipalities) -- would get 50 per cent grant from the Centre for implementing the water supply scheme. The Telangana Urban Finance Infrastructure Development Corporation (TUFIDC), the nodal agency for AMRUT for release of funds, would make all the annuity payments for the purpose.
Operation and maintenance period for the new water supply components has been fixed as seven years, including defect liability period from the date of commercial operations (COD) in the ULB concerned, which is two years after entrusting work to the contract agency. The provision has been made to satisfy the Centre’s guidelines under the AMRUT. It is also proposed that the contract agency chosen for maintaining water supply would provide two supervisors to every ULB since the condition of the existing water supply system would be unknown to it.
The power charges, consumables, repairs and wages for the manpower would, however, have to be borne by the ULBs.
The other municipalities to which the Mission Bhagiratha scehme would be extended include Jagityal, Korutla, Metpally, Sircilla, Palvancha, Sathupally, Yellandu, Bellampally, Bhainsa, Kagaznagar, Manchiryal, Mandamarry, Nirmal, Jangaon, Gadwal, Narayanpet, Wanaparthy, Bhongir, Tandur, Vikarabad, Sadashivpet, Sangareddy, Zaheerabad, Bodhan and Kamareddy.
