Chief Secy for laying focus on completion of schemes under JJM

Jammu, Jan 15: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo Monday while chairing the Apex Committee meeting of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) impressed upon the concerned that after culminating the process of tendering and allotment of works the focus of the mission should be to complete the schemes well on time.
The meeting besides the ACS, Jal Shakti Department was attended by Principal Secretary, Finance; Secretary, Rural Development; Secretary, School Education; Mission Director, JJM; Chief Engineer, Kashmir/Jammu besides other senior officers of the department.
While speaking during this meeting the Chief Secretary highlighted the importance of identification of the sustainable water source for each scheme in order to achieve the goal of round the year ‘Nal se Jal’ for each household. He stressed on carrying out the much requisite feasibility studies to make the schemes successful in providing quality water to the its consumers.
He called upon the department to make provision for senior officers to monitor the progress on each scheme and see that it completes meeting all the essential guidelines set for the water supply scheme. He even advised for earmarking a proportion of works to be monitored by the concerned Chief Engineers especially those with having ground water source or requiring electromechanical works for their completion.
Dulloo also asked for enhancing the capacity of locals to carry out the testing of water supplied to them and operation of the allied schemes. He called for training as many locals as possible in the local technical institutions for keeping a pool of technically sound people in each village to look after their schemes. He impressed upon enhancing the number of ‘Nal Jal Mitras’ for accelerating the frequency of testing and better operation of the schemes.
He also called for making provisions for operation and maintenance of the schemes wherever necessary for the panchayats to be declared as ‘Har Ghar Nal se Jal’ certified. He called for increasing the IEC activities to generate awareness among the masses besides taking measures for including ‘water conservation’ in the school curriculum here as desired by the PM.
The ACS, Jal Shakti, Shaleen Kabra informed the meeting about the measures being taken to pace up the progress on this mission. He gave out that till date 76% of the households have been provided with tap connections comprising of 14,23,305 households across the districts of J&K. He further apprised that around 3,27,215 households have been added in the current financial year only.
Regarding the execution of works the ACS revealed that the progress is satisfactory as 6478 (98%) of works already stands allotted and 5806 (88%) works started on ground and 1571 works completed by the executing agencies.
As far as water quality monitoring is concerned it was said that around 204957 tests had been conducted in different areas of the UT in 98 labs established across it. It was also given out that 7530 Free Testing Kits (FTKs) have been distributed in villages where more than 33000 women have been trained to use these kits properly.
Moreover it was highlighted that out of 22 district labs, 10 have been accredited by NABL and rest are going to get the accreditation soon. To ensure quality it was reported that third party monitoring, roping in of NGOs as ISAs besides capacity building of Pani Samities is ensured across the panchayats of the UT. It was also revealed that all the water testing labs at tehsil/Subdivision level are being inspected by Food & Drug Controller to ascertain their readiness and fitness for the task they had been established.
The committee later gave an in principle approval to the carrying out of works on 79 schemes across the UT to include the left out 57837 households across different districts of the UT as per the guidelines of this mission besides taking other decision for smooth advancement of this national mission.