Panchayats to be rewarded for water conservation

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, January 13

The district authorities in Sirsa have announced that village panchayats that work towards conservation of drinking water will be awarded.

Sirsa Deputy Commissioner Nikhil Gajraj, who presided over a meeting of officials today for improving supply of drinking water to people in the district, also issued a toll free number 1800-180-5678 for lodging any kind of complaints regarding supply of potable water.

The DC asked Public Health Engineering (PHE) officials to ensure that there was no wastage of drinking water in villages.

Officials should ensure that there were no water supply outlets without taps so that water was not wasted, he said. Villagers should be encouraged to set up recharge pits so that the water flowing in the streets did not go waste.

The Deputy Commissioner said the villagers should be educated about the importance of drinking water during meetings of the Gram Sabhas.

He said the village panchayats working towards conservation of water would be given cash rewards from Rs 20,000 to Rs 50,000. Such panchayats would also be honoured during the Republic Day and Independence Day functions.

“For becoming eligible for this award, the village panchayat must have 75 per cent of its water connections authorized and most of the connection must have taps installed on them,” he said.

Villages with a population of 5,000 or more people would be given cash reward of Rs 50,000, those with population between 3,000 and 4,000 would be given Rs 40,000, with population of 2,000 to 3,000 people would be given Rs 30,000 and those villages which population of less than 2,000 persons would be given Rs 20,000 as cash reward.

Pradeep Punia, Executive Engineer of the PHE Department, said the department received 4,438 complaints of water supply in the current year and all have been resolved.