The Government today said that 90 percent of all rural households in the country will be covered by tapped water system by 2022, as the focus now is shifted from the hand pump approach to the surface water supply system. Briefing the media after a two-day Conference of State Ministers in charge of Rural Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, Rural Development Minister Shri Jairam Ramesh said here that at present only 35 percent households in rural India has piped water system. He informed that while Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh have more than 80 percent rural areas covered by tapped water supply, in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar less than 10 percent areas are under the piped water scheme, as the focus in these North Indian States are more on hand pumps. Shri Ramesh said, due to absence of electricity in rural and extremely backward areas, some States have demanded solar-energy based drinking water system. He said that the Centre has already approved installation of solar-based water system in 10,000 villages of 78 naxal-affected districts with an outlay of 540 crore rupees and the project will be completed in 18 months. The Rural Development Ministry has sought 230 crore rupees as grant from the Finance Ministry for this project. The Minister said that naxal-affected Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra has already 200 solar-water systems. He said, form 12th Five Year Plan every person in rural India will get 55 litres of water per day as against the current entitlement of 40 litres and the same is 135 litres per person per day in Urban Areas, which the Minister described as biased in nature. Shri Ramesh said that from the 12th Plan, State Governments can spend up to 62 percent of the funds on improving the water quality, which is at present only 11 percent. He said, 60 districts have been selected including 20 in Uttar Pradesh to deal with the problems of water borne diseases like Japanese encephalitis and the diseases caused due to excessive arsenic, iron and fluoride in drinking water in the States like West Bengal, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Karnataka.On the Sanitation Issue, the Minister said that Total Sanitation Campaign will be changed to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and Rs.9,500 will be allocated for the toilet construction in the Gram Panchayats, nearly double the amount currently spent on individual latrines.
You May Also Like
loading...
Popular Posts
-
Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna reviewed Labour, Employment and Dairy Development Departments at his residence on Thursday. He directed the...
-
The 2014 edition of the ‘SIMBEX 14’ series of annual bilateral naval exercises between the Indian Navy ( IN ) and the Republic of Singap...
-
Shri Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting & Ministry of Enviro...
-
Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna assured Asian Development Bank of all possible cooperation in its various projects of infrastructure develop...
-
The Union Cabinet today approved the proposal to provide a special incentive package to promote large-scale manufacturing in the Electronic ...
-
The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Statistics and Programme Implementation Shri Srikant Kumar Jena has said that the Comptroller...
-
Power sector is being given priority in allocation of coal blocks as well as in authorization of Letter of Assurance (LoA) for long term coa...
-
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the launch of the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), t...
-
As reported by Central Electricity Authority (CEA), out of 131.09 million tons of ash generated from the Thermal Power Plants in the country...
-
The commissioning of Unit-1 of Kudankulam project is schedule to be completed very soon. The removal of dummy fuel and inspection of the Re...