BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched ‘BASUDHA’ Helpline-1916, a dedicated grievance management initiative for rural water supply in the State on Saturday. He also unveiled the logo of ‘Buxi Jagabandhu Assured Drinking Water to all Habitation’. The helpline will receive complaints regarding drinking supply in rural areas between 6 am and 6 pm. The grievances will be addressed in a time-bound manner.
Launching the initiative, Naveen said, “I hope rural people will get to register their complaints regarding breakdown and non-functioning of projects. I would expect the department to take immediate follow-up action on these grievances.” The Chief Minister asked the Rural Development department to speed up execution of projects to achieve the goal of providing safe drinking water to all households in rural areas of the State.
BASUDHA was launched in 2017-18 as a tribute to Buxi Jagabandhu in the bi-centenary year of Paika Rebellion with a budgetary outlay of `600 crores. The State Government provided `1000 crore for the scheme in 2018-19.
The State Government has built 78 state-of-the-art water testing laboratories across Odisha to ensure that the supplied water meets the necessary quality standards. Official sources maintained that more than five lakh samples are being tested in a year. The Government has also adopted strengthening measures like the engagement of Authority Engineers and Third Party Quality Monitoring. The objective of the scheme is to provide adequate safe water to rural people for drinking and domestic purposes on a sustainable basis.