SHILLONG, Aug 16: Public Health Engineering (PHE) Minister Renikton L Tongkhar on Tuesday sought to defuse the controversy involving Union Minister of State Bishweswar Tudu, who had walked out of a review meeting last week, saying that the Union MoS did not express dissatisfaction on the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission in the state. Tongkhar reminded that the project was progressing smoothly in Meghalaya and the two awards presented by the Union Ministry proved that fact.
“It was just a minor thing. He did not get a hard copy of the presentation prepared by the department and he said that he needs the hard copy as he would not be able to remember all the points made in the PowerPoint presentation. I asked the chief engineer to give the printout,” Tongkhar said.
“On the performance of JJM, he did not express unhappiness. We got two performance awards from the Ministry as we are doing better compared to other states in the country.”
Asked about the physical progress, he said almost 40% is completed and the major chunk of it is in the Garo Hills region.
The minister said the target is to complete the project by December this year but it would not be easy as another 60% has to be completed in four months.
“It may sound impossible but I can tell you that we have almost achieved 100% results in terms of sanctioning of the schemes. Out of 5,89,800 targeted households, we have sanctioned 5,45,000 and 40,000 plus households remain for which we need to get the sanction done by September,” he said, adding that he was hopeful that the state may achieve 100% sanction by September and 50% in terms of implementation.
Minister apologises to Mawlai residents
Tongkhar on Tuesday apologised to residents of Mawlai for the inconvenience caused due to the ongoing work of the Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme Phase-III and asserted that he was pushing for early completion of the work.
“I want to apologise to the people facing problems while driving through Mawlai because of the ongoing work. We want to compete it this year itself and we are on the job,” he said.
“There have been lot of complaints but we must understand that water supply is important,” he added.
On challenges faced in completing the scheme, he said there is always a tussle between the PHE and the PWD (Roads) department due to the necessity of digging roads built up by latter. He stated that the matter has been sorted out and the PHE will pay the PWD for road repair and the departments are cooperating with each other.
