SHILLONG
The drying up of water sources has become one of the challenges to implement the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in the state.
This was revealed by the Minister in-charge Public Health Engineering (PHE) Renikton Lyngdoh Tongkhar on September 19.
The JJM is envisioned to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India.
“In many places, the water sources are drying up and the water level of many rivers has also come down. This is the biggest problem that we are facing (while implementing the mission) and we are trying to address this concern,” Tongkhar told reporters.
The minister informed that he has also written to the Jal Shakti Ministry requesting financial support to acquire the catchment areas as “this is the only solution to protect the water sources across the state”.
“If we can acquire land on the catchment areas we can do tree plantation and will not allow people to encroach onto the catchment area,” he said while adding “As of now, the big threat is that human activities are encroaching into the catchment areas. One of the main reasons for water pollution is also encroachment of human activities to the catchment areas.”
He further said that another challenge is the water sources being located very far away from the villages.
“(For such villages), we have asked the department to prepare another proposal to take from the sources which are very far away. The cost will obviously increase multiple times,” he added.
On the status of the JJM, the minister said 40 per cent of work has been completed and the department is targeting to achieve 50 per cent by the end of this month.
“We have not withdrawn from the target to achieve 100 per cent by the end of December, this year. We targeted only 5.89 lakh households but we have now crossed 6.30 lakh plus. Therefore, since the households have increased, this may be one of the reasons we may not be able to reach 100 per cent but we are trying to achieve the maximum percentage within this year itself,” he said.
Further, Tongkhar informed that Rs 1400 to Rs. 1500 crore out of Rs. 5400 crore has been spent so far for implementing the JJM in the state.