Haryana govt spends Rs 379 crore for better water supply

Chandigarh, Apr 9 (UNI) The Haryana Government has spent a sum of Rs 379 crore to augment the supply of potable water in 1414 villages and 26 towns of the state.

While stating this here today, a spokesman for the Haryana Water Supply and Sanitation Department said that the families belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs) in 910 villages of the state had also been provided with free water connections of drinking water.

He said as the Mewat area was experiencing chronic water shortage so the Rajiv Gandhi Potable Water Augmentation Scheme was being implemented to supply sufficient drinking water to 503 villages of the area at a cost of Rs 206 crore. Under this scheme 235 tubewells had been installed and 117 tubewells and six boosting stations had also been started.

Around 2550 government schools in the rural areas had been provided with safe drinking water by the government.

The government had been concentrating on increasing the supply of potable water to such villages where availability of drinking water is less than 40 litres per person per day. Under this initiative, development schemes were ready for 24 towns and in 19 towns these schemes were already in progress.

Under the Indira Gandhi Drinking Water Scheme, the water connection fee of Rs 500 in rural areas and Rs 1000 in urban areas had been waived off for a period of one year. Under this scheme households of members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would be provided with free water connections, a tap and a 200 litres capacity water tank.

UNI