All homes to get drinking water through pipelines: Sahis

Ranchi: State’s Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Ramchandra Sahis said that the government was taking all possible steps to ensure that 3.25 crore people of Jharkhand get access to pure drinking water in their homes.

Addressing a press conference at the Suchana Bhawan here he said that the state has made many new achievements in the area of cleanliness thanks to the active participation of the people.

Mr Sahis said that Jharkhand set a new milestone as it achieved the target to become an ODF state well before the stipulated time which was set for it. He said last year itself on November 15 Jharkhand was declared ODF during which 33.74 lakh toilets were constructed in the rural areas.

The minister said in the last four and a half years 100 percent achievement in the construction of household toilets have been achieved. He said that the number of household individual toilets was 39.93 lakh while 29,564 villages were declared ODF. He said that to achieve the targets of Swach Bharat Mission the department took many initiatives and linked more than one lakh self help groups have been linked with Swachtha Sankalp Abhiyaan in which 15 lakh women participated and more than 55,000 women worked as Masons and completed the construction of 3.5 lakh toilets and the campaign was lauded across the nation and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the initiative.

The minister said that even the department took many initiatives to create awareness among the people for sanitation. Mr Sahis said that the state government was committed to provide drinking water in the homes of the state by 2024 and so far in 34.77 percent areas drinking water through pipelines has been provided to the people. 

He said that to provide clean drinking water in the villages of the primitive tribes group work was on 2251 minor solar powered drinking water supply schemes while under Mukhyamantri Jan Jal Yojana out of 11124 minor irrigation schemes approved for SC/ST villages work was going on over 8094 schemes and apart from that under DMFT 82 drinking water supply schemes have been approved in Ramgarh, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Chatra, West Singhbhum and Godda districts under which 25.90 lakh people will be provided clean drinking water. 

Those present on the occasion also included Secretary Drinking Water and Sanitation Aradhana Patnaik and IPRD Director Ram Lakhan Prasad Gupta.