24x7 drinking water to every house in 3 years: CM

Vijayawada: Stating that the aim of the state government is to supply safe drinking water uninterruptedly through taps to every household in the coming three years, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here on Thursday directed the officials to make progress in this regard.

Reviewing rural water supply and Jal Jeevan Mission in the state with officials at the Secretariat on Thursday, the Chief Minister said that of the Rs 27,248 crore funds released by the Centre for this programme, the YSRCP government had spent merely Rs 4,235 crore and over 28 lakh houses are yet to be supplied with water through taps.

Directing the officials to formulate plans to supply uninterrupted safe drinking water to every household, the Chief Minister felt that pipelines can be built from the nearest reservoirs in the rural areas. He wanted the officials to coordinate with the authorities of the irrigation department to know the capacity of water storage and utilisation.

The Chief Minister said and told the officials to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for giving tap connections to 28 lakh households. Make the top-level consultants as partners in this programme and utilise the latest technology of SCADA for speedy supply of water and check the leakages, he said.

The main target of the state government is to supply safe water to all households by 2027. Had the Jal Jeevan Mission was implemented perfectly in the past five years, by this time all the houses would have got safe drinking water, he remarked.

Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and the officials of the department were present at the review meeting.

Earlier, the officials informed Chandrababu that 95.44 lakh houses in 26 districts in the state need to be supplied safe drinking water through tap connections. Of these, 31.68 lakh houses had tap connections before 2019 itself and during 2019-24, the then government could supply water to merely 39.68 lakh houses, they informed the Chief Minister.