CM Naidu vows 24/7 drinking water supply to every AP household in 3 years

Amaravati: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed officials to work on supplying uninterrupted drinking water through taps to every household in the coming three years.

Chairing the review meeting at the State Secretariat on Thursday on rural water supply and the Jal Jeevan Mission, the chief minister said that the NDA government has brought in the Jal Jeevan programme with the sole aim of supplying safe drinking water to every household but the previous government ‘has not only destabilised such a significant programme but also miserably failed in utilising funds.’

Jal Jeevan Mission

“Of the Rs 27,248 crores released by the Centre for the programme, the YSRCP government had spent merely Rs 4,235 crores and over 28 lakh houses are yet to be supplied with water through tap connections,” he said.

States like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala are utilising the Jal Jeevan Mission programme to the maximum while the programme did not move forward in AP as the then YSRCP government did not release the matching grant, the chief minister said.

“Steps need to be taken to permanently resolve the drinking water problem. Drinking water was supplied to various villages before 2019 through tap connections as tankers were already built by that time. But the YSRCP which came to power later did not bother to take it further,” Chandrababu said.

95 lakh houses need drinking water

Directing the officials to formulate plans to supply uninterrupted safe drinking water to every household, the chief minister felt that pipelines could be built from the nearest reservoirs in the rural areas. He wanted the officials to coordinate with the authorities of the Irrigation Department to know the capacity of water storage and utilisation.

Over 95 lakh houses need to be supplied drinking water now, the CM Naidu said and told the officials to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for giving tap connections to other 28 lakh households.

“Make the top-level consultants as partners in this programme and utilise the latest technology of SCADA for speedy supply of water and check the leakages,” he said.

The chief minister stated that the tenders of works that had made no progress should be cancelled.

‘Centre will give funds’

“We will get funds from the Centre by making a request and also by correcting these mistakes and the main target of the State Government is to supply safe water to all households by 2027. Had the Jal Jeevan Mission been implemented perfectly in the past five years, by this time all the houses would have got safe drinking water,” the chief minister remarked.

He also directed the officials to regularly monitor the ongoing works and see to it that quality material is used. These works should be accelerated immediately, Chandrababu said. Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and the officials of the department were present at the review meeting.

Earlier, the officials informed CM Chandrababu that 95.44 lakh houses in 26 districts in the State need to be supplied with safe drinking water through tap connections. Of these, 31.68 lakh houses had tap connections before 2019 itself and during 2019-24 the then YSRCP government had to supply water to merely 39.68 lakh houses.