BHUBANESWAR: The State Government will provide piped water supply to all rural households by 2024-25, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Minister Pratap Jena informed the Assembly on Tuesday.
Replying to a question by Congress member Taraprasad Bahinipati, the Minister said that 19,504 out of total 47,306 villages in the State have been supplied with piped drinking water. Around 46.26 per cent of the rural population have been covered under piped water supply (PWS) scheme. All villages would be provided safe drinking water by 2025, he added.
Accusing the Minister of misleading the House by furnishing false data, Bahinipati claimed that 50 per cent of the drinking water projects are lying defunct.Ruling BJD MLA Pradeep Maharathy said there are inconsistencies in the claims of the Government and reality of the projects implementation. He said the Minister had earlier assured supply of safe drinking water to all villages by 2020.
As per 2017 estimate, 1.17 lakh out of 1.56 lakh villages including hamlets did not have piped water supply. The same year, the Government had set a target to provide safe drinking water to majority of the households by 2020.
Expressing concern over undue delay in implementation of PWS projects, senior BJD member and former Speaker Pradip Amat said several drinking water projects under construction for the last 13 years in his constituency are not completed.
Replying to another question from BJP MLA Mohan Charan Majhi, the Minister said the department had targeted to construct 1,716 piped water projects under BASUDHA, NRDWP and RIDF in the current financial year. The rate of project completion is 41 per cent with commissioning of 704 projects.
The achievement is nil in tribal dominated and Naxal affected Malkangir district where 12 projects have been sanctioned.
In response, the Minister said all households in urban areas will get piped drinking water supply by 2020. However, the Government had planned to provide tap water to all the households in the 114 urban local bodies by the end of 2019.
The Minister said the Centre has so far provided Rs 549 crore for drinking water supply projects while the State Government has sanctioned Rs 17,372 crore. Senior Congress MLA Suresh Kumar Routray walked out as he was not allowed to participate in the discussion.