SHILLONG:
The performance of three districts – East Khasi Hills, East Jaintia Hills and West Jaintia Hills – in terms of implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission is “very poor”.
This was informed by the Minister in-charge Public Health Engineering Marcuise N Marak after reviewing the implementation of the mission in the three districts recently.
“The status of functional household tap connection in terms of percentage is very low. The three districts are at the bottom,” Marak told reporters.
The progress of work in East Khasi Hills is at 36.45%, East Jaintia Hills at 36.72% and West Jaintia Hills at 40.03%.
“I am trying to push these three districts so that they are at par with the other districts in the state,” he said.
When asked, the minister said after reviewing the status of the projects in the three districts, he came to a conclusion that slow progress of work was due to no power connection for installation of the pumping machines.
“The projects are stuck up due to no power connection since a maximum of them requires installation of pumping machines (for making the water taps functional),” he said.
Stating that he would soon take up the matter with the power minister AT Mondal, Marak said, “I am going to write a DO letter and I will have a separate meeting with the power minister and I will bring this to his notice that these things are happening. Therefore, I hope I will be able to plug the loopholes happening in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission.”