Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today directed the local bodies department to ensure coverage of all towns of Punjab with ultra modern sewerage system besides installation of sewerage treatment plants (STPs) by February 15. Reviewing the status of ongoing sewerage projects in a high level meeting here on Monday, Mr. Badal asked senior officers to expedite the work of installation of STPs and potable water supply system in all 163 towns along with 60 nagar panchayats. He directed the officers of local bodies and water supply and sewerage board to complete the task before 15 February 2015.Badal also emphasized Punjab Engineering College would be the independent agency for independent quality control for works being executed. He said an external agency would audit the independent quality control for works being executed under JNNURM and UIDSSMT while WAPCOS would be technical quality control agency for PIDB funded schemes.
The Deputy CM said Punjab water supply and sewerage board would be overall executing agency and Technical Advisor to Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal would lead the team of officers. Badal also directed officers of PWSSB to regularly visit in the field to inspect the quality of works.The officers of PWSSB apprised Deputy CM that water supply works were already on full swung in 69 towns, sewerage works in 47 towns and STPs in 61 out of which in 35 towns it was on war level while in 26 it would initiate very soon. They informed that in 15 towns, sewerage and STPs were already completed.Mr. Badal also asked to use ultra modern techniques in cleaning of sewerages in the cities. It was also informed that for cleaning of Sewers, super sucker machines were being used. Deputy CM also directed all Deputy Commissioners to submit the status report of land acquisition process for STPs within two days. He said that DCs would be overall incharges to monitor all sewerage projects. Adding further he also asked DCs to check quality of work as well as treated water and bi-monthly reports in this regard to be submitted.Prominent among others present in the meeting included Som Parkash Chief Parliamentary Secretary, P.S Aujla Principal Secretary to Deputy CM, Ashok Gupta Secretary Local Bodies, D.K. Tiwari CEO PWSSB, Ravinder Singh Chairman Punjab Pollution Control Board, Yogesh Goyal MD PIDB, R.K. Goyal and R.P. Gupta both Chief Engineers of PWSSB.