SHILLONG, July 1: All eyes are now on the Meghalaya government which has been posed with the challenge of meeting the deadline to provide tap connections under the mega project, Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), as COVID-19 continues to hamper the execution of many projects in state.
The government is looking to provide all rural households with tap water under the JJM by December 2022.
Flagging concerns, Congress MLA Himalaya Shangpliang said that the project is facing several challenges, and cautioned that if the government does not address the problems, the target may not be achieved.
The MLA, on Thursday, pointed out that the pipes for the project are not supplied on time.
The Public Health Engineering (PHE) department has not been able to finalise the pipe suppliers and works assigned to Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC) as well as contractors, Shangpliang said.
“Civil work may have been completed but the problem is that they are not being able to provide pipes. In the absence of pipes and hardware shops closed by and large now, there are plenty of problems,” Shangpliang said.
“If there is cost overrun, then again contractor will claim additional cost; there will be a lot of extra additional expenditures. Therefore, I feel the PHE department should review once again on the implementation process of the whole JJM,” the Congress MLA said.
Talking about the most prominent of the challenges, which is procurement of pipes, the MLA said that majority of the areas he has visited complain of the same issue — no supply of pipes.
When asked how he sees the progress of the project so far, Shangpliang said the implementation is going on well and that they have no complaints, but reiterated that if pipes are not accessible, then the whole work can come to a standstill.
On the other hand, PHE Minister Renikton Tongkhar admitted that the COVID-19 situation has had been a detriment to the field work, but assured that the government is making efforts to ensure that all contracts and tenders are issued on time.
Informing that the physical progress of the scheme is around 20 per cent as of now, Tongkhar maintained that the department will make good progress by the end of this year.
“We are still confident that we can achieve the target within December 2022,” the PHE minister said, while adding that the department has now roped in many manufacturers for supplying pipes for the project.
Till date, the state government has connected over 1 lakh households with tap water connection and has a target of connecting 5,89,888 households by the end of next year.
