Union Minister Ram Kripal Yadav today said the Centre is committed for the development of North East at par with rest of the country.
"There is no dearth of fund. If the state government wants we will provide more funds. Water and sanitation is a state subject and the government should prepare feasible projects to get allocation from the Centre... There is need for vigorous pursuance from the state government's side," Yadav told PTI.
Yadav, who is on a day-long visit to Arunachal Pradesh to take stock of drinking water and sanitation projects, said he had come as per the directive given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who attached top priority for the development of North East.
"The prime minister has directed all ministers to spend more time in the region and see that all the central funds are being utilised judiciously," Yadav said.
"My ministry today released an additional Rs 20.9 crore to five NE states under National Rural Drinking Water Project (NRDWP). For Arunachal Pradesh Rs 8.71 crore, Meghalaya Rs 4.56 crore, Tripura Rs 4.18 crore, Assam Rs 1.8 crore and Sikkim Rs 1.65 crore was given from the Rs 200 crore unutilised fund of the ministry under the scheme for last year," he said.
Expressing concern over slow implementation of projects under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, he said many people are still ignorant about the central scheme under which Rs 12000 is being given to every household for constructing latrine in 90:10 ratio (90 per cent central grant and ten per cent state's share).
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Yadav visited Ziro in Lower Subansiri district during
the day and interacted with the people to know the status of household latrines and drinking water facilities in the district headquarters.
Later, he said though 64 per cent latrines have been constructed at Ziro but the pace for total sanitation was slow and stressed on conducting a survey of every household in Arunachal Pradesh.
The union minister of state for drinking water and sanitation said his ministry had allocated Rs 56.69 crore in 2015-16 to the state for drinking water schemes.
The total allocation to the state under the scheme is 72.78 crore after adding the left over amount of Rs 16.09 crore from 2014-15 allocation, he said adding Rs 38.71 crore was released during 2015-16 to the state under sanitation programme. After addition of the left over amount of Rs 5.14 crore from 2014-15 allocation under the scheme it was Rs 43.85 crore.
However, only 25 per cent of the funds - that is only Rs 15.36 crore have been spent so far.
Referring to the drinking water sector in the state, he said much needed to be done to provide drinking water to the people and the NDA government is committed to provide 70 litres water per person per day throughout the country by 2022.
Solid waste management is a major component of Swacch Bharat Andolan and the state government should stress more on solid waste management to make it successful.
Under Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, Rs 67.16 crore out of sanctioned Rs 68.56 crore for 4,689 beneficiaries had been disbursed to Arunachal pRadesh by the Centre as on March 25, he added.
