CS for harnessing JK’s plentiful water resources judiciously

Srinagar : Chief Secretary, BVR Subrahmanyam Thursday called for optimally and judiciously harnessing J&K’s plentiful water resources to provide safe drinking water to every household in the State.
Chief Secretary said this while chairing a high-level meeting with senior officers of the Public Health Engineering (PHE) to review the water supply scenario in the State. He also took a comprehensive review of the flagship schemes like National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP) aimed at augmenting the potable water supply in uncovered areas.
Secretary, PHE, Irrigation &Flood Control, Farooq Ahmad Shah, Chief Engineers and other senior officers were present at the meeting.
Chief Secretary said to ensure completion of all the water supply schemes in stipulated time-frame with assured funding, 417 such schemes, across the state,have been approved for funding through JKIDFC under Languishing Projects Program involving a cumulative investment of Rs 682 crore. He said all these pending schemes are scheduled to be completed within next 18 months.
He directed the officers of the PHE Department to complete the work on these schemes within the stipulated timeframe and ensure quality is maintained in execution. He also called for focusing on coverage of uncovered areas.
Chief Secretary stressed the need for working out a well-thought-out strategy before framing modalities of new water supply schemes, in particular relating to source depletion and long-term viability.He asked Chief Engineers PHE to ensure that all technical processes are completed before starting work on new schemes.
The Chief Secretary also called for sensitizing the people about judicious and economical use of drinking water to ensure maintain a balance in the demand and supply.
Earlier, the Secretary PHE, I&FC Farooq Ahmad Shah briefed the Chief Secretary about various ongoing works and apprised him about issues related to fund constraints, which are hampering work on certain critical projects. He also briefed the CS about the mechanism devised to complete all languishing projects in the state.
Giving details about various ongoing schemes, the Secretary said under National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP), 28 schemes are presently under execution, while under NABARD 79 schemes and under LIC 89 schemes are nearing completion. He added that the total cost of all the schemes is around Rs 1601 crore.
Chief Engineer, PHE, Kashmir, Chief Engineer, PHE Jammu, Superintending Engineers, Executive Engineers of all Divisions of Kashmir Zone and other concerned were present in the meeting.