Piped water supply eludes 80 Mewat villages

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 28

“Despite spending several hundred crores during the past ten years, nearly 80 villages and Firozepur Jhirka town of Mewat are still not getting piped supply of drinking water and have to meet their daily need of water with tankers”.

Zakir Hussain, INLD MLA from Nuh constituency of Mewat, said this in the State Assembly during the question hour after he failed to get a reply to his satisfaction on a question whether the government had any proposal for augmentation of water supply to these areas.

Banwari Lal, Minister of State for Public Health Engineering, said in his reply that a proposal of Rs 263 crore was under consideration and the projects would be completed within three years from the day the proposal was approved.

“I find it strange that the government is still considering whether to approve a proposal for providing drinking water to its people or not,” Hussain said.

He said the minister was trying to mislead the House by saying that the project would be completed within three years from the date of approval because unless the government approved this project from government funds, the project would never see the light of the day. He said he had learnt from officials that the proposal was getting delayed because the government wanted funds from the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD), which was not possible as it provided funds only for rural schemes and Firozepur Jhirka was an urban area.

Jai Parkash, Independent MLA from Kalayat, asked whether the government had any proposal to provide canal water for drinking purposes in Sectors 18 to 21 of Kaithal town since the residents were forced to drink fluoride-rich water.

Parkash demanded that the test reports be placed in the House when Minister for Urban Local Bodies Kavita Jain said in her reply that there was no such proposal because water sample of only one tubewell was found containing fluoride and it was closed.

Abhay Singh Yadav,BJP MLA from Nangal Choudhary, sought details of the doctors and paramedics deployed in his constituency and those deputed elsewhere.

Health Minister Anil Vij replied that five doctors have been deputed to district hospital and they would be sent back to their PHCs and CHCs if the member had any problems with that.

INLD MLA from Julana Parminder Singh Dhull’s question whether the government had any plans to set up seed quality testing and certification laboratories at the district level was replied in negative by Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar.

Aseem Goyal, BJP MLA from Ambala City, wanted that a veterinary and livestock development assistant (VLDA) institute to be opened in Lakhnaur Sahab in his constituency be opened by the government.

The legislators Kiran Choudhry (Congress, Tosham), Ved Narang (INLD, Barwala), Jagbir Singh Malik (Congress, Gohana), Balwan Singh Daulatpuria (INLD, Fatehabad) and Ram Chander Kamboj (INLD, Rania) were among those who asked questions during the question hour.