Dalit habitations in every village that gets connection for drinking water supply under Mission Bhagiratha project would be given water first before other habitations in that village by fixing household tap connections on priority basis.
The directions were given to the authorities at a review meeting held on the drinking water project here on Sunday by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Deputy Chief Minister K. Srihari, Vice-Chairman of the project V. Prashanth Reddy, Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of Genco D. Prabhakar Rao, CMD of SPDCL G. Raghuma Reddy, Special Chief Secretary S.P. Singh and Engineer-in-Chief B. Surender Reddy were among others who participated in the meeting.
Asking the Mission Bhagiratha officials to procure motor required for the project from BHEL, the Chief Minister told them to complete works of taking water from sources based on Krishna and Godavari rivers to all the villages by December-end 2017 and take up intra-village works after that. He, however, said providing tap connection to every household was the most important work under the project.
Works on all intake wells, raw water treatment plants, fitting motor pump-sets and other related works should be completed by December-end next year and construction of water tanks in villages should also be done simultaneously, the Chief Minister suggested. “The decision to give water to Dalit and tribal habitations first is taken since they were neglected all these years and the change should start with drinking water supply under Mission Bhagiratha itself,” he noted.
He told the Ministers and District Collectors to visit the ongoing works frequently and keep a tab on the progress of work on regular basis. Stating that the government was getting compliments from across the country for laying trunk pipelines by getting clearances pertaining to railway crossings, forest and private lands in a record time, he wanted the authorities to continue the remaining work with the same spirit.
The Chief Minister made it clear that there was no shortage of funds to Mission Bhagiratha since several funding agencies, including banks, had come forward to extend loan besides budgetary allocation. Further, he stated that the decision to procure electro-mechanical equipment from BHEL was taken following other companies resorting to bargaining in the matter of price.
He also spoke to Chairman and Managing Director of BHEL Atul Somti over phone during the review meeting. He suggested the State government official to hold a meeting with BHEL officials at the earliest to come to an understanding on the supply of electro-mechanical equipment.
