The Governor’s administration has envisaged connecting each and every household of the Jammu and Kashmir with Piped Water Supply by 2022 for ensuring water security to its population.PM has also launched a massive programme namely 'Jal Jeevan Mission'(UJM) to achieve the above target in the country by 2024 with an aim to 'Har Ghar Nal Se Jal.To achieve target of 100% Piped Water Supply to each household by 2022, the state requires meticulous planning, faster execution and assured availability of funding.In view of these requirements, the PHE department is preparing a road map for consideration of the State Administrative Council to achieve the given objective in a time bound manner.The department has recently conducted a detailed exercise for preparing District Water Security Plan through the District Water and Sanitation Mission headed by the concerned Deputy Commissioner. This exercise has been conducted to find out the current coverage of Piped Water Connection in District and assess the funding requirements. It is pertinent to mention that the J&K has around 30% piped water connectivity which is much above the national average of 18%.As part of the exercise a meeting was chaired by the Commissioner Secretary to Government PHE, I&FC, A K Sahu here today to review the preparedness of Jammu region.Explaining the preparedness of the Jammu region to achieve the 100% coverage, the Chief Engineer PHE Sanjeev Kumar Chadha informed that around 5 lakh households are still to be connected through household connection in Jammu region.
The Secretary informed the meeting that the state government has already provided Rs 716 cr under languishing projects, Rs 111 cr under NABARD and Rs 21 cr under state Capex with total amount of Rs. 848 cr for water supply schemes in the districts of Jammu. Besides, around Rs 150 Cr is expected to be provided under CSS of Jal Jeevan Mission taking total allocation this year to around Rs 1000 cr. The Commissioner Secretary informed that similar allocation for Kashmir division has also been made taking overall allocation to more than Rs 2000 cr for Jammu and Kashmir, adding separate allocation has been made to Ladakh.“This has been unprecedented allocation so far in the PHE sector and has been done with a view to achieve the target of 100% piped water coverage in a time bound manner at faster pace” he added. The Commissioner Secretary asked all the PHE engineers to gear up and complete the schemes in most efficient and professional manner. He asked the CE to increase the capacity of the field staff and also do hand holding of the contractors for faster execution of the work.The Commissioner/Secretary informed that for maintaining an inventory of stores, which use to be a major component of Water Supply Schemes, the state government has recently provided an imprest fund of Rs30 cr each to both the CEs of PHE.The meeting was attended by the Chief Engineer PHE Department Jammu and all the Superintending Engineers and executive engineers of various districts.