A Correspondent
BOKO: Corruption and irregularities have become an integral part of the Boko sub-division of the PHE Department. Reactions by villagers can corroborate how the department is continuously depriving people through corruption and irregularities in providing services like pure drinking water.
A few days ago, information came to light about massive irregularities and corruption in Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) works from the reaction of the local public in the Hahim area along the Assam-Meghalaya border. Massive irregularities and corruption came to light in the Lampi area under the Boko sub-divisional PHE office along the Assam-Meghalaya border.
Lampi is situated in the Kamrup district, and it is around 100 km from the state capital.
According to village headman Krishna Sharma, more than 500 families live in the hilly Lampi area.
Biju Chetry from Lampi village expressed regret that even though the Indian citizens celebrate the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ for completing 75 years of independence, the people of the Lampi area are still deprived of pure drinking water.
Biju Chetry expressed concerns about the corruption in the PHED. Often, government grants come for pure drinking water, but in the end, the move fails due to the negligence and corruption in the department.
In his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the rampart of Red Fort on August 15, 2019, said that the central and state governments will jointly work on the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). “We have promised to spend more than Rs. 3.50 lakh crore on this mission in the coming years,” he said.
Biju added that since he was a child, he first came to know in 1990 that the state government would work for pure drinking water in the Lampi area, but no family got water from the water supply scheme situated in the Harshanagar area, and the families of Lampi do not get a drop of pure drinking water. However, according to the departmental documents, the people of Lampi get water. When asked about the project and JJM Scheme implementation in Lampi, SDO Mukut Barman said the JJM Scheme works were not started during his tenure. JJM’s work started before his joining the Boko PHE sub-divisional office.
He alleged that the neighbouring state of Meghalaya closed the dam from where Assam PHED wanted to supply water to the Lampi area, and now the Meghalaya state changed the direction of the stream.
However, village headman Krishna Sharma directly opposed the allegation that Meghalaya closed the dam. Sharma said that the people of Meghalaya use that stream for cleaning their clothes. Sharma also emphasized that the Meghalaya government has worked well on JJM, and that is why now the bordering people of Meghalaya get pure drinking water. On the other hand, Sharma alleged that Assam engineers lack working experience, so every time PHE’s water supply schemes have failed, departmental engineers just make excuses.
SDO Mukut Batman also emphasized that the JJM scheme would be implemented with the help of a deep tube well. He also added that the (Detailed Project Report) DPR team surveyed the Lampi area recently, and very soon the work will start. The villagers of the Lampi area raised an important question: how many times will the department waste crores of rupees granted by the government and collected from the people in the name of supplying drinking water to every household in the Lampi area?
Also Read: Assam: Massive irregularities in Jal Jeevan Mission scheme alleged in Boko (sentinelassam.com)
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