Secretary Public Health Engineering (PHE), Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC), Farooq Ahmad Shah, today said that the Department of PHE is committed to provide safe drinking water to the people across the state and efforts are on to accomplish the mission.He said this while chairing a meeting here at Civil Secretariat to review the water supply scenario and irrigation facilities in Baramulla district.The meeting was attended Chief Engineer I&FC, MM Shahnawaz, Chief Engineer PHE, Abdul Wahid, Director Planning, Mohammad Yousuf, Superintending Engineers, Executive Engineers and other senior officers of the allied departments. He said the department has been entrusted with a noble job of ensuring the very basic services to the people by providing pure and safe drinking water. He said various schemes have been implemented in the state to ensure adequate water supply to consumers.During the meeting, officials gave a detailed briefing about the water supply scenario in Baramulla district and the progress on various schemes for providing safe drinking water to the consumers.
The meeting was informed that there are 102 filtration plants in Baramulla district of which 84 filtration plants are functional while 18 are currently non-functional.Shah directed the officials to prepare Detailed Project Reports (DPR) at an earliest for making non-functional filtration plants and irrigation schemes fully functional and to address the requisite water requirements in the district. He also directed to maintain cleanliness in and around the filtration plants besides erecting fencing around them to ensure safe drinking water is supplied to the consumers.Responding to the complaints with regard to the water supply in Tangmarg, Sopore and Uri, Shah directed the officials to take pro-active measures so that the scarcity of water is addressed in these areas. He also directed to install hand pumps and tube wells in water-scarce areas besides making available water tankers.While reviewing the functioning of I&FC, the Secretary directed the officials to maintain the irrigation canals besides take effective measures to ensure better irrigation facilities to the farmers.He also directed officials to regularly make field visits in their respective areas to akin themselves with people’s grievances and take a keen interest in resolving their issues at earliest. He also directed them to ensure that the bunds over rivers streams and other irrigation canals are safe and strong to avoid breaches in them.Taking strong exception to the encroachments over Irrigation canals, Secretary directed the officers to act hard against the encroachers and retrieve the encroached land immediately. He warned action against the erring officials who show dereliction in their duties.