SHILLONG, Feb 23: The division bench of the High Court of Meghalaya has directed the Meghalaya government to formulate a policy clearly laying down a roadmap for providing potable and arsenic-free water to citizens who do not have access to it.
The order also states that the policy drafted by the state government shall be placed before the Court on behalf of the state on or before the next date of hearing on March 2.
In the previous hearing, the Court had directed the state chief secretary to furnish a detailed report in the form of an affidavit stating therein specifically the exact number and names of those villages in Meghalaya which do not have access to potable and arsenic-free drinking water.
Responding to the Court directive, the chief secretary filed an additional affidavit stating that for implementation of rural water supply schemes, the PHE department has been following the guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation and other instructions issued by the Ministry from time to time.
The affidavit also stated that water is supplied to various villages from the storage reservoirs through piped water supply scheme either by gravity or pumping but in those villages where there are no organised water supply schemes due to non-availability of surface water source, other type of schemes and spot sources like ring wells, spring tapped chambers and hand pumps are taken up under the erstwhile NRDWP. The State Plan schemes also provides for construction of ring wells in various villages.
The affidavit further stated that the Government of India has restructured and subsumed the ongoing National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) into the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti which was launched on August 15, 2019 with an aim to provide functional household tap connection (FHTC) to every rural household by 2024.
However, during the latest hearing, the Court observed that the additional affidavit affirmed by the chief secretary does not reveal any policy of the state government other than referring to JJM programme of the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, which is basically a programme of the Government of India.
“It is quite evident that the State of Meghalaya does not have any scheme/policy of its own in order to ensure that every village in the state is provided with easy access to potable and arsenic-free drinking water,” the Court said while asking the Meghalaya government to formulate a policy which should lay down a roadmap for provision of potable and arsenic-free drinking water to rural households.
