Chief Secy for providing 24×7 water supply in urban areas

Srinagar, Oct 18: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta Tuesday impressed upon the Housing & Urban Development Department (HU&DD) to work for providing round the clock quality water supply to all the urban areas here in J&K.
He made these remarks while speaking in a UT Level Steering Committee meeting of AMRUT 2.0.
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, H&UDD; Commissioner Secretary RDD; Commissioners of JMC & SMC; Chief Engineers and other concerned officers.
Dr Mehta underscored the need for providing drinking water to all the urban households meeting all quality standards and pressure. He asked them to provide a minimum of 135 litres per capita per day to all the households as mandated under National policy. He asked them that the department should continuously work towards improving their quality of services provided to people. He told them to saturate their services in all the urban areas under the AMRUT 2.0.
Dr Mehta also stressed on augmenting the water sources and making them sustainable for future. He asked them to take scientific measures towards this direction including planting of trees around them. He called for taking cost effective measures for successfully completing the AMRUT 2.0 in the scheduled time.
The Chief Secretary also asked them to make Sewage/Septage plan for all urban areas for its better management. He suggested to see for recycling of waters for industrial or non-domestic uses.
He also asked them to formulate a robust IEC plan for the awareness of general public. He gave an in principle approval to the UT Water Action Plan and said that together with the Jal Jeevan Mission it would fulfill the goal of providing functional tap water connection to each household of J&K.
It was given out in the meeting that under AMRUT 2.0, some 2.25 lakh tap connections would be provided and more than 4 lakh connections would be augmented. Similarly around 310 MLD quantity of source water would be augmented. The department is also going to provide around 73000 sewage connections in urban areas and add/augment 54 Sewage treatment plants under AMRUT 2.0, ad was revealed in the meeting.
It is pertinent to mention here that the national mission of AMRUT has been envisaged to ensure that every household has access to a tap with the assured supply of water and a sewerage connection. It also aims at reducing pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for non-motorized transport like walking, cycling etc.