West Bengal government to provide tap water supply to 55 lakh households by March next year: Official

The West Bengal government has set a target to provide 55 lakh households in the state with tap water supply by March next year, a senior official said on Monday.

He said the government has decided to provide tap water supply to at least 20,000 households daily under the 'Jal Swapno' scheme and work for the same will start from October.

Currently, under the scheme the state Public Health Engineering (PHE) department is connecting 2,000 households with tap water supply every day, he said.

"The state PHE department has been given a target of connecting at least 55 lakh households with tap water supply by next March. For this, they need to connect at least 20,000 households every day. The work for the same will begin from next month," the official told PTI on Monday.

The 'Jal Swapno' scheme was launched by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in July this year. The Rs 58,000 crore project is aimed at providing tap water connection to two crore households in the state within the next five-year period.

Over 3.5 lakh households have already been provided with tap water supply connection under the scheme since its launch in July this year.

The decision to expedite the process of taking tap water supply connections to more households in the state was taken at a video conference recently held by Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha where senior officials from the district and other concerned departments were present.

However, there are places where laying of the pipelines to take the tap water is yet to start as well as work to set up treatment plant for the same are still incomplete.

"The finance department has given its nod to almost all districts administrations to carry out the project. But there are some places where we are facing varied problems. At all those places, officials and district magistrates have been instructed to take necessary steps to expedite work to complete it.

"The chief secretary has given strict instructions to quickly solve any land-related problems or other hindrances halting the progress of the project and proceed," he said.

The officials in the districts have also been asked to get in touch with the 'District Water and Sanitation Mission' to find a solution to the problems, he added.