50 villages to witness waterworks under Jal Jeevan Mission by March-end

Aurangabad, Feb 11:

The zilla parishad's executive engineer (water supply) Ashok Ghuge underlined that the task of preparing the detailed project report (DPR) aiming at providing water supply and water connections to each house in 50 villages of the district under the Jal Jeevan Mission is expected to get completed in a month. Accordingly, the administration is hopeful of getting administrative approval to them by March-end and start the waterworks after completing the tender process, on priority.

Under the mission, the administration will be providing pure drinking water to each house of 1299 villages in the district. Accordingly, the plan of Rs 706 crore was tabled before the District Water and Sanitation Committee. The plan has been designed to meet the water demand of each village's population after 15 years. The target is to complete the project by 2023-24.

Of the total 1299 villages in the district, the waterworks in 19 villages had got completed recently, while out of the remaining 1280 villages, the ZP administration will be undertaking repair and maintenance of pumps and distribution systems in 382 villages under the first phase, apart from repairing and maintenance of old water tanks and water sources in 607 villages. The water supply schemes in 277 villages had become outdated. Hence the water distribution network will have to be expanded. Meanwhile, the gramsevaks have been directed to submit details like the number of houses in his village that needs water supply and other grievances relating to water scheme. The village-level information would help the administration to plan the new water supply schemes.

According to Ghuge, " The ground-level survey was done in 73 villages under National Drinking Water Mission (NDWM). The DPRs were also prepared accordingly in 2019. Now the NDWM has been revised as Jal Jeevan Mission, and it aims at providing 55 litres of water to per person per day (PPPD) instead of 40 litres PPPD. The government recognised four agencies were deployed to conduct the survey and prepare DPR as per the new parameters. Of the four agencies, one withdrew its services. It was having the responsibility of surveying in 23 villages. Hence the process of appointing a new agency in these villages is underway. Besides, the task of preparing DPR of remaining 50 villages is also going on, and they will be submitted for approval before March-end. The works would go on after administrative approval."

The details of waterworks in 50 villages (tehsil wise) are as follows: Aurangabad-six, Phulambri-three, Gangapur-one, Kannad-seven, Khuldabad-five, Paithan-11, Vaijapur-11, Sillod-two and Soyegaon-five.