Govt sets a month to fix dysfunctional water units

The state government on Thursday set a one-month deadline for zilla panchayats to repair over 3,000 water purification units across all districts that are dysfunctional.

Rural Development & Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister K S Eshwarappa, during a meeting with ZP chief executive officers and other officials, informed that out of 17,510 water purification units commissioned, 3,294 have stopped functioning due to various reasons.

According to sources, Eshwarappa took officials to task and directed them to ensure the units are repaired immediately. Also, he sought an explanation on why the units had stopped functioning and told the meeting that the engineers concerned who certified them should be held responsible.

It was also decided that the Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited (KRIDL), which is currently responsible for the upkeep of the water units, hand them over to gram panchayats. The government will pay gram panchayats Rs 3,000 every month for maintenance of the water purification units.

The minister ordered officials to investigate into why 45 Bahugrama (multi-village) water schemes implemented with crores of public money have stopped working. These include water supply schemes in the drought-prone districts of Bagalkot, Belagavi, Ballari and Chamarajanagar among others. Karnataka had commissioned 477 multi-village water supply schemes of which 432 are functioning.

Rural waste management

It was decided in the meeting to start solid waste management in villages coming under 898 gram panchayats whose detailed project reports (DPR) on setting up door-to-door collection and transportation of waste as well as their treatment were approved. Every gram panchayat will get a one-time grant of Rs 20 lakh.

Karnataka has 6,024 gram panchayats. Apart from the 898 gram panchayats where waste management will be implemented, the remaining GPs were directed to prepare their DPRs for approval.