Srikakulam: Fund crunch hits potable water supply

Srikakulam: Due to funds crunch, Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to supply safe potable water in semi-urban and rural areas, lags in the district.

The Union government funds the mission and the State government implements it in the State. The mission is implemented with an aim to supply safe drinking water to all houses in rural and semi-urban areas.

Rural Water Supply (RWS) officials conducted field surveyand identified a total of 6,65,023 houses in the district. Of the total, safe

drinking water is being supplied to 1,06,657 houses.

According to RWS officials, an estimate of Rs 301 crore is required to supply safe drinking water to all the identified houses across the district.

The officials prepared a plan to supply potable water to 3.73 lakh houses under JalJeevanMission in the current financial year. To achieve this target, they identified a total of 1,786 works across the district.

Initially works were on quick phase but billswere not being paid to contractors, which affected the progress of the work in the later stages.

RWS superintendent engineer B Ravi Kumar said that they are waiting for the sanction of funds. He added that they are discussingwith contractors and motivate them to finish minor works to supply of water to some of the villages.