SHILLONG, Jan 11: Minister in-charge PHE, Renikton L Tongkhar on Tuesday clarified that the Centre has not communicated any decision to halt the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in the state.
His statement comes in the wake of media reports that the implementation of the said scheme has been stopped.
Clarifying that the state has just received a bonus for “smooth” conduct of the work, Tongkhar said that if such a thing was to happen then, the state would have received warning letters or a show-cause notice to clarify.
“The report is not factual as we have not received any such letter from the Centre. Before doing that the Ministry of Jal Shakti which oversees the Jal Jeevan Mission should have written to the state government and called for an explanation or serve a show cause notice. Instead, we have received a bonus for our performance,” said Tongkhar.
Reiterating that the Department has not received any such communication, Tongkhar said, “I request the people of Meghalaya not to be misguided and to find out the facts and figures. If they have any information from any source they can help us by giving the information.”
“It is important to report facts as people have faith in the media and once a report is published people take it for granted that it is correct,” he added.
The PHE Minister said, “In Meghalaya, the work under JJM is progressing very well compared to all other states and even though we are not at the top we are also not at the bottom, so we are performing very well.”
Informing that at the beginning there were only 4,550 households that had water connections, he said that now there are almost 1, 98,000 households which have been connected with water pipes.
“We have done our best and we are still continuing to do that hence I would request that such negative reports should be avoided,” he added.
He requested all involved in the mission to ensure that water is given to each and every household as targeted by the end of this year.
He further informed that over 1,200 villages had already been covered.
When asked if it would be possible to connect the targeted over 5 lakh households by the end of this year, Tongkhar said, “It may sound impossible to you as the number is very high, but when we started in 2019 we had only 4,550 household connected with water pipes and now after all the problems we encountered which we have managed to solve one after the another, I will not be able to say whether we will achieve 100 percent but the maximum number of households will get piped water by the end of this year.”
As far as the pace of work is concerned they will be doing far better in this period than they have done in the past as the problem of availability and supply of pipes has been solved to a certain extent and now almost all divisions have adequate pipes to carry on with the work hence there will be a quantum jump is the implementation part.
JJM work in full
swing: CM
Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma also said that there is no such aspect of any stoppage of work from the Centre on the implementation of JJM in the state.
“In fact, the work is going on in full swing. Within a year and half, we have covered almost 2 lakh plus houses where almost 10 lakh individual benefitted from the scheme and the team is working overtime to ensure that we meet our targets,” Sangma said while speaking to reporters.
‘It is really sad that unverified report emerged when the team is working very hard’, he added.
Govt examining
change of company
Minister in-charge PHE Renikton Lyngdoh Tongkhar on Tuesday informed that the department is examining the question of whether or not to change the Kolkata-based company, Jindal India Limited for the JJM project work.
As it was alleged that the Kolkata-based company was found supplying sub-par GI pipes for the project, the minister said that if found guilty the company might be blacklisted.
“We are examining the matter,” he added.
It may be mentioned that earlier members of pressure groups while conducting a surprise inspection at the office of the Executive Engineer of Public Health Engineering (PHE), Umsning Sub Division, had detected a truck-load of substandard pipes being supplied by the Kolkata-based company, Jindal India Limited.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner and Secretary PHE Department, SMA Razi in a rejoinder has stated that the news about Ministry stopping the flow of funds to JJM is devoid of facts and there is no such communication from the Government of India (GoI) to this effect and that on enquiry the Gol officials categorically denied any such development.
“It is repeated that there is absolutely no truth in the claim that the Government
of India has stopped any project under JJM in Meghalaya. This kind of misleading and malicious reporting appears to be an attempt to sabotage this important flagship programme and deny the benefits that would accrue to the common people of Meghalaya,” Razi stated.
Putting the achievements under JJM Meghalaya in perspective, Razi informed, “When the mission was launched our baseline survey showed that out of 5,89,888 rural households in the state only 4550 (0.77%) households had piped water supply and Meghalaya was at the bottom amongst all states as far as coverage was concerned.”
“From that stage we have been able to achieve 1, 97,944 (33.56%) Functional Household Tap Connections till date and Meghalaya is now at 25th position in terms of coverage and 15th in terms of achievement under JJM in the country,” Razi added.
Stating that efforts of JJM Meghalaya were duly recognised by the Central Government which even granted a bonus of Rs. 10 (ten) crores in 2021-22, Razi said, “This has been achieved despite the wide spread disruptions on account of Covid-19 and constraints like very short working season on account of monsoons and poor connectivity due to difficult terrain which are unique to the state of Meghalaya.”
Razi informed that during the current fiscal, Meghalaya has leap- frogged and is awaiting three central share instalments of central grants compared to several other states.
Stating that performance of the state in particular and the country in general is in public domain and can be publicly accessed by all, Razi stated, “ As far as quality issues are concerned the state has empanelled Third Party Inspection Agencies for checks on quality and these agencies have consistently rated quality as satisfactory.”
Razi informed that even for GI Pipes the state utilises the services of a third-party inspection agency for pre-delivery checks and despite that if quality issues are noticed, corrective action is taken by field engineers.
“The instructions regarding no compromise on quality are unequivocal from top to bottom in the department,” Razi added.
On cost comparison with other hill states, Razi stated that Meghalaya has not received any such official communication from GoI and if such a comparison is to be made it should be made with other hill states of Northeast with similar socio-economic profile.
Pointing out that to implement a programme of humungous magnitude like the JJM there are likely hiccups which are encountered.
“Keeping quality as the uppermost criteria the supply of pipes has been restricted to reputed vendors,” Razi claimed.
“The stock when received is inspected as per guidelines and instances have been there where we had rejected supplies on account of deficiency of quality and payment has been withheld against such supply,” Razi added.