Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU: People of Jammu and Kashmir continue to reel under scarcity of drinking water as the State Government has failed to take any major initiative to overcome the crisis because of its alleged casual approach while an embargo on launching new schemes under NRDWP till completion of the undertaken ones is other obstacle in minimizing the gap between demand and supply.
Despite announcement of the Government and its Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control for giving top priority to minimizing water supply-demand gap, not even a single scheme of tapping more sources of water in Jammu as well as in Kashmir province could be started during the last eight months of this dispensation.
The casual approach of this Government towards its one of the most important Department of Public Health Engineering (PHE) can be gauged from the fact that there is no permanent Chief Engineer of PHE Jammu for the last more than five months as charge of this post is being held by Chief Engineer Irrigation and Flood Control in addition to his own duties and responsibilities ever since forced retirement of then Chief Engineer in the month of July 2015.
What to talk of drinking water scarcity in rural and Kandi belt, there are areas in the capital cities where the water supply is made after four-five days while the supply lines, laid down more than two decades ago for catering a few households, have not yet been replaced despite manifold increase in the demand.
Pertinent to mention that the capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu, having a combined population of 26 lakh, require 116.22 Million Gallons of water daily, while the Department is supplying only 104.36 MG on daily basis. Similarly, in bigger towns to cater to a population of over 14.5 lakh, having a daily demand of 74.80 MG, only 33.78 MG is being supplied on daily basis.
Further, about 85 lakh people living in villages have daily water supply requirement of 107.72 MG, while as the Government is able to supply only 92.13 MG.
To deal with this gap in water supply system, the Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control, Choudhary Sukhnandan on March 27 had announced on floor of the House that Government had prepared a comprehensive plan and sincere efforts would be made to implement the same on ground at the earliest. Project proposals of Rs 600 crore under NRDWP-Normal and Rs 30 crore under Desert Development Programme (DDP) were formulated for the year 2015-16.
Even as the Government has successfully completed some of the undertaken schemes, which were started during the previous regime, no new project could get approved by the new dispensation as the Government of India has put an embargo on sanctioning new schemes under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) till completion of the ongoing schemes.
Further, the fate of much talked about Rs 886 crores project for supply of 240 MLD drinking water from Chenab to Jammu city is still hanging in balance because of various bottlenecks on account of technical reasons. The project was submitted to the Union Ministry of Urban Development, last year.
Even as some schemes are nearing completion and a number of others are underway, the huge gap between demand and supply of drinking water in Jammu and Kashmir is unlikely to be filled completely till big projects like Chenab water supply scheme take practical shape.
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