Pratap Jena Directs officials to Focus on water Drinking projects

Bhubaneswar: Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Minister Pratap Jena on Tuesday directed officials to expedite the work of piped water projects held up due to COVID-19.

Jena has directed to start work on 66 ongoing mega water supply projects and nearly 6000 drinking water projects in the State. These projects have come to a standstill for over two months for the outbreak of the dreaded coronavirus.

The minister told reporters during a review meeting chaired by him at Lok Seva Bhavan that nearly Rs 20,000 crore will be spent on these projects.

Jena said the budgetary allocation for the 66 mega projects is Rs 13,180,96 crore and added that 16 more drinking water projects will also be made operational at a cost of Rs 32,56,61 crore under Basudha scheme.

The minister said two mega drinking water projects have also been made operational at a cost of Rs 1553.2 cr from district mineral fund. He said tenders will be floated shortly for 21 mega drinking water projects.

Jena said the aim of the government is to provide piped drinking water to all households and added that efforts are being taken to expedite the work.

The matter pertaining to starting new projects in areas that do not have drinking water projects and where people are facing difficulties in getting drinking water also came up for discussion at the meeting.

Minister Pratap Jena further informed that a budgetary provision of Rs 10,000 crore has been drawn up for these projects in the current year.

The review meeting was attended by the Director of Water Resources B Parameswaran, Chief Engineer Abaya Biswal, and other senior officials