TABLE WATER SUPPLY
| In a major policy initiative aimed at placating the urban population, the government today announced a scheme to enhance drinking water supply to metropolitan cities. |
| While successive governments in the past have been addressing the vital question of providing an assured supply of potable water to rural India, this is perhaps the first time the Central government has decided to launch a mega scheme, covering most of the metropolitan cities. |
| Hitherto, mega cities have been trying to overcome the growing water shortage through either their own municipal resources or on the strength of support received from their respective state government. |
| But the growing influx of rural people to big cities and the inability of the infrastructure to keep pace with the burgeoning population has made the government sit up and take urgent measures to meet the crisis which, at times, turns into a major law and order problem. |
| Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announced today that the accelerated drinking water supply scheme for big cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad would be finalised by his ministry shortly and was expected to be operational by March 1. |
| Finance ministry sources said Kolkata, Lucknow, Shimla and Jaipur would be taken up in the next phase of implementation of the scheme. Most of the big cities would be covered under the scheme in about three years, they said. |
| The finance minister said the provision for the existing central scheme for infrastructure development in mega cities would be augmented by accessing the Infrastructure Fund, the Life Insurance Corporation and other such funding sources. |
| The details, he said, would be finalised by the finance ministry to ensure that the scheme became operational by March 1 this year. |
| With water scarcity taking on alarming proportions in most of the major cities, the scheme will definitely come as a relief to the people. |
