Households with tap connections goes up from 32.13% to 34.66% in State
Jal Jeevan Mission experts AK Gupta and Ashok Basra discussing Jal Jeevan Mission progress with Prakasam District Collector A S Dinesh Kumar and
RWS SE Mardan Ali in Ongole on Friday evening
Ongole: The National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene experts for Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), AK Gupta and Ashok Kumar Basra, visited 16 villages in Chandrasekhara Puram and Marripudi mandals in the Prakasam district for five days, and monitored the progress of works.
They have briefed the outcome of the field visit and shared their observations with the RWS&S superintending engineer Mardan Ali and Ccollector AS Dinesh Kumar before leaving the district.
The Jal Jeevan Mission was launched in the country to provide safe and adequate drinking water through tap connections to every household in rural India. In the 40 months of its implementation, the State and Central governments were successful in bringing the percentage of households with tap connections from 16.72 per cent to 55.23 per cent in the country.
In Andhra Pradesh, the percentage has gone up from 32.13 per cent to 34.66 per cent and the work is going on in the villages.
In Prakasam district, tap connections will be provided in 1,529 villages under Jal Jeevan Mission. The WASH experts from the Jal Jeevan Mission, AK Gupta and Ashok Kumar Basra visited 16 villages in Marripudi and CS Puram mandals and inspected the status of the works and interacted with panchayat sarpanches, secretaries, villagers, women and the RWS&S officials.
The Jal Jeevan Mission officials informed the district officials that out of the total 16 villages they had visited, works in three villages were complete and the homes were given tap connections while works in six villages are yet to begin. The tendering process is in progress in the remaining seven villages.
The district authorities informed them that they were very keen to provide 55 litres of potable water per person per day at their doorstep as per the JJM guidelines.
The RWS&S SE Mardan Ali said that the experts team expressed satisfaction over their visit and suggested taking up the works on the fast track. He said that the team has suggested taking steps to get the NABL accreditation for the Kanigiri and Kondepi laboratories.
They have further suggested for implementation of a Grey Water Management System in the inspected villages, he added.