To provide safe drinking water to rural masses, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today announced setting up of a Drinking Water Quality Testing Regulatory Authority in the state.
This was announced during a meeting to review the progress of various rural water supply schemes under the prestigious World Bank Project Stage-I with the seven-member World Bank team led by its senior water and sanitation specialist and task team leader Srinivasa Rao Podi Pi Reddy here.
On the request of the Chief Minister, Reddy promised to install free water connections along with meters to all the domestic consumers in the villages under the ongoing WB aided rural water supply project.
Badal said that the regulatory body would be mandated to ensure hygienically tested quality drinking water to the people residing in villages across the state to save them from falling prey to water borne diseases.
He noted that the deadly menace of cancer especially in the Malwa belt due to excessive use of pesticides, insecticides besides the presence of heavy metals like nickel, chromium and uranium in the ground water must be prevented.
Appreciating the concept of establishing an authority, Reddy said that he was fully satisfied with the pace of development for providing potable drinking water to the rural masses who were now taking keen interest in the rural water supply schemes, being health conscious especially in southern districts of the state.
He also apprised the Chief Minister about a unique scheme of World Bank to cover 100 villages to provide the facility of sewerage as a pilot project, where the work had already been commissioned in 19 villages and balance villages would also be covered in due course of time.
Reddy informed the Chief Minister that after the success of the ongoing sewerage project in the rural sector the scheme would be replicated in nearly 1,000 more such villages in the World Bank's next project of rural water supply and sanitation stage-II of Rs 1,200 crore likely to be approved soon by the Centre which would be taken up during next fiscal.
