Mission Bhagiratha project for providing tapped drinking water to every household in the State is fast nearing completion in erstwhile undivided Nalgonda district.
Not only will all the 6,20,389 households in Nalgonda and Suryapet districts get water but also some 199 schools, which did not have access to any water, are going to benefit from the scheme as the water is set to flow in the pipelines soon, says Superintendent Engineer G. Lalitha.
The flagship programme has been delayed even after Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s ‘milestone promise’ made before the last Assembly elections of not seeking votes if he could not ensure drinking water through Mission Bhagiratha. At the time of Assembly elections in 2018 work on the project was 40% completed for the OHSR or the distributary system, and the “almost-complete” assurance by the government was, 97.7%, of tap connections. And the connecting pipeline-laying was 75% achieved.
Labour scarcity
The major bottleneck was availability of labour to complete the OHSRs and lay the intra-village pipelines and this has been addressed now, the Superintending Engineer said adding that “more than 95% works have been completed.”
According to reports of intra-village works, Munogode, which has the most number of fluorosis survivors, has progressed well with 167 of the 169 OHSRs completed, a few kilometres of pipe-laying work is pending and all the 56,112 houses are connected with taps. In fact, all the 6,20,389 households in Nalgonda and Suryapet districts have tap connections.
Pipe-laying is to be completed in at least 20 km in Suryapet, Kodad, Thungathurthy, Huzurnagar, Halia and Miryalaguda constituencies and in Nakrekal constituency some 150 kms work is yet to be completed.
Extension of Mission Bhagiratha works to all government schools is also in progress. All the 3,135 schools in undivided Nalgonda district, including the 199 schools which do not have any source of water till now, will be provided with potable water through Mission Bhagiratha.
According to officials Nalgonda ranks third or fourth “from the bottom” in the State in implementation of Mission Bhagiratha.
