PM to inaugurate conference on rural water, sanitation

New Delhi, July 3 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate a two-day Conference of state ministers of rural drinking water supply and sanitation focusing on providing drinking water and sanitation facilities to all by 2012.

The Conference will focus on ensuring 'Sustainability in Drinking Water Supply projects and Sanitation for All' in the rural areas of the country by 2012. The Prime Minister will also release the document on Water Sustainability.

Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Minister for Water Resources Saifuddin Soz and Ministers of State for Rural Development Chandra Sekhar Sahu and Suryakanta Patil will attend the Conference.

'Sustainability of water sources' has emerged as a major challenge in the rural drinking water sector in recent times. The challenge lies in working out strategies to make water supply systems sustainable in terms of quantity and quality and ensuring that the fully covered habitations do not fall back to status of non-covered and partially covered.

The Conference will broadly focus on the issues, such as, progress under Bharat Nirman, issues of sustainability and convergence; Water Quality Surveillance Programme, Data Management&use of technology for Planning and Sanitation for all by 2012 with focus on aged, specially abled and children and Solid&Liquid Waste Management. Effective implementation of the Drinking Water component in Bharat Nirman, the flagship programme of the Government of India, and State-specific Action Plans under Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP), ARWSP (DDP), Sub Mission on Quality Control and the National Quality and Surveillance Programme will also be reviewed.

The Total Sanitation Campaign, the Nirmal Gram Puraskar and Sanitation for All by 2012 will be taken up for discussion and review under Rural Sanitation. The usage of Web based Integrated Management Information Systems developed by the Department of Drinking Water Supply for all future programmes/expenditure will be key to the review process.

UNI