Over 63 lakh households to get piped water by 2024: PHE Minister Rihon Daimary

State PHE Minister Rihon Daimary addressed a press meet regarding the implementation of the Central government's flagship scheme JJM, on Wednesday.

The Minister said that under the JJM scheme, the State government has set a target to provide piped water to 63,36,315 rural households by the year 2024.

Launched on August 15, 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the JJM aims to ensure access to piped water for every household in India by the year 2024.

Daimary said that the scheme was implemented by the Assam government on December 25, 2019 under the directives of Ministry of Jal Shakti. In this regard, On January 18, 2020 a high level team from the Centre visited Assam to check the progress work of the scheme. The team fixed a target for the government to provide piped water to 11.58 lakh households within 3 months. "In response to the target, the Assam PHE informed the Central team that the department will only be able to achieve a target of 2 lakh within the period. However, only 48,908 households were provided water as due to the COVID-19 pandemic the scheme was halted," stated Daimary.

Further, he said that in the financial year 2020-21, the government aims to achieve a target of 13,15,226 households. On May 22, the PHE department prepared an annual action plan through video conferencing with the officials of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, said Daimary. "The action plan is yet to receive a nod from the State government. The budget to implement the entire project is Rs 25,000 cr. The PHE department has already started appointment process to fill the vacant posts. Around 56,000 youths will be given Skill Labour training that will help in the implementation of the scheme," he asserted.

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