Puri becomes first Indian city to provide mineral quality drinking water 24x7

Bhubaneswar, July 29: The sacred city of Puri is witnessing a wave of rapid urban transformation. The latest in the list is a new transformative initiative launched by CM Naveen Patnaik called 'Drink from Tap' mission, making Puri, India's first city to provide 24x7 Drink-from-Tap quality water to every household.

'Drink from Tap' mission will ensure that the water supply adheres to "Quality Standards of IS 10500" and will benefit the city's 2.5 lakh population and 2 crore tourists who visit the holy Jagannath Dham annually.

The 'Drink from Tap' mission is a step in the direction of CM Naveen Patnaik's dream of making Jagannath Dham Puri, a world-class heritage city. Getting safe drinking water from the tap in India was once believed impossible. However, Odisha, under the 5T Governance Mantra has shown the rest of the country that it's possible.

With this transformative initiative, Puri has joined the league of international cities like London, Tokyo, New York and Singapore with Drink-from-Tap quality piped drinking water. Puri now has 100% metered household water connections with safe drinking water round-the-clock. This initiative will also help to prevent the usage of 3 crore plastic bottles, thus eliminating 400 metric tonnes of plastic waste.

The numerous modern infrastructure projects are executed with caution while maintaining the sanctity, glory and significance of this sacred place under the ABADHA scheme.

Owing to CM Naveen Patnaik's ambitious drive and relentless efforts of Sri VK Pandian, Secretary to CM and Secretary 5T, who spearheaded this project and completed it in a mission mode within just 9 months.

The emphasis was on 'Transformation in Time', which is the mantra of 5T. Today the city of Puri is better poised to make an imprint globally as a world-class heritage city. Puri as a city is being developed with a vision to have a modern municipality that provides a better economy, a better quality of life, a good governance structure, mobility, a secure environment, and citizenship participation.

The residents of Puri, as the major stakeholders, are also embracing a change with comprehensive efforts to transform the quality-of-life equivalent to that of world-class cities. The 'Sujal' or 'Drink from Tap' mission truly captures the contours of the transformation as envisioned by the state for its 4.5 Cr people.

Apart from Puri, the mission is also on its way to success in 16 other cities across Odisha covering its 40-lakh population. This transformative initiative, 'Drink from Tap', under the 5T Governance Mantra, is set to provide safe water to every household in Odisha across all 114 urban local bodies with an inclusive mandate covering all slum households across the state.

It is imperative to highlight that the 'Sujal' or 'Drink from Tap' mission is not merely a subject of delivering good governance or adopting best practices for providing citizen-centric services, but it goes way beyond that. For CM Naveen Patnaik, it's about the most critical human quotient, the interwoven components of care and the well-being of his 4.5 Cr family members. As the head of the family, that is what drives him every day.

Manoj Mishra (The writer is Secretary, Electronics & IT and Science & Technology, and OSD to the Honourable Chief Minister, Odisha. He can be reached at [email protected])

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