Minister for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control Sham Lal Choudhary has called upon the engineers to take appropriate measures to plug the leakage of pipes at various places to save the precious commodity of drinking water. He directed for undertaking regular survey of such leakage and taking immediate steps to plug these.While reviewing the water supply position of Jammu city at a meeting of engineers at the newly constructed Meeting Hall of PHE, I&FC department at Company Bagh, Jammu, the Minister said that he himself has seen leakage of main pipes at various places which are not attended for days together thus wasting large quantity of water. The department should devise a foolproof mechanism to address this major issue to save water, he asserted. MLA Jammu (East) Rajesh Gupta, Chief Engineer, PHE Susheel Aima, Chief Engineer, I&FC Rajeev Gandotra, Chief Engineer Rawi-Tawi Irrigation Complex HC Jerath and other senior offices of the department were present in the review meeting.The Minister further directed the officers to prepare a comprehensive plan for removing the encroachments and preserving their assets, besides making concerted efforts for creating new assets for the department.
In the meeting, MLA Jammu (East) Rajesh Gupta said that rotten water pipes in the old city should be replaced with new ones as soon as possible. More than 20 to 30 per cent of water gets wasted due to leakages in water pipes, which should be repaired with immediate action by the department.He further asked the department to conduct awareness campaigns for educating the people about the benefits of saving water.The Chief Engineer PHE informed that 19 new Water Supply Schemes are being constructed by ERA in Jammu, out of which, seven would be handed over to the department by the end of December, this year. This will definitely help the department to further streamlining the water supply in Jammu in the next summer season, he added.The Minister instructed the officers to regularly conduct field visits for checking water supply position and inform him about the new steps being taken by them for augmenting water supply in their respective areas.He further ordered that Assistant Executive Engineers (AEEs) should sit in their respective sub-division offices while Junior Engineers (JEs) should remain present in their section headquarters. The Executive Engineers should have constituency wise detail of concerned Water Supply Schemes readily available with them, he added.