SHILLONG, Oct 11: PHE Minister Renikton L Tongkhar on Tuesday said the Centre allowed Meghalaya to include areas classified as census town under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and nine census towns have been included which took the targeted number of households for the implementation of the project to 6.3 lakh.
“We have prepared the DPR also of the nine census towns. The number of households has increased to 6.3 lakh as the ministry has allowed the census towns,” he said after a review meeting.
Commissioner & Secretary of PHE Department Syed Md A Razi, who is also the JJM Mission Director, Meghalaya, said as per the guidelines, the state has been allowed to do so only in areas classified as census town.
Urban areas, which have urban local bodies, have not been allowed yet, he added.
Tongkhar said Meghalaya stands to benefit from it as there are only a few municipal areas in the state. He said a proposal to cover areas in and around Shillong under the nine census towns was sent to the ministry and it has approved the same.
The minister said the total number of targeted households was 5,89,888 but with the inclusion of the nine census towns, it has now increased to 6.3 lakh. The funds have been earmarked and will be sanctioned soon, he said.
Talking about the review meeting, he said JJM has been completely implemented in more than 1,400 villages. He said around Rs 1,600 crore has been spent so far in the implementation of the project.
On challenges and hurdles, he said the targeted completion month is December but the progress of the work has just crossed 40%.
“We are trying our best to achieve the maximum by the end of December. We will do wonders these three months as it is a working season,” Tongkhar said.
“We are facing many difficulties on the ground but addressing each and every problem. Supply of pipe was a problem that we have now almost solved,” he said, adding functionality is one of the key factors and efforts will be made to keep the pipeline functional.
The minister stressed on the need to preserve the catchment areas and said the department is working to make interventions.
On the charge of the BJP and others about shoddy implementation of the project, he said the work is ongoing and the performance can be gauged only after the completion of the work.
He said a lot of corrections have to be made. There may be breakdown of machines and problems might surface but the department will try to fix them, he added.
