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Assam Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) Minister Jayanta Mallabaruah reviewed the progress of Jal Jeevan Mission, Assam, during a two-day workshop held at Assam Administrative Staff College in Guwahati on June 27-28, which was attended CEO, Zila Parishads, Additional District Commissioner, JJM, and engineers under the Public Health Engineering Department.
Addressing the workshop, Jayanta Mallabaruah urged the officials working in the field to focus on ensuring functionality of the schemes handed over to the community under the Mission. Jayanta Mallabaruah, directed the officials to also prioritize building community ownership of the water supply schemes developed and handed over to the community under the Mission. Participating in the workshop was also addressed by Special Chief Secretary, Syedain Abbasi asked the officials present to prioritise Operation and Maintenance of the scheme. Delivering the key note address, Mission Director, Jal Jeevan Mission Assam, Kailash Karthik N highlighted the innovations and initiative undertaken by JJM Assam like GIS mapping, JJM Brain etc. He also highlighted the challenges being faces by Jal Jeevan Mission during the implementation of the Mission. He urged all the stakeholders present in the workshop to address the issues in the field for seamless implementation of the schemes for the interest of the common people. Besides, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between JJM and Arghyam, a charitable trust based in Bengaluru was also signed in the presence of the Minister, PHED. The MoU which has been signed for a period of two years aims at leveraging Arghyam's expertise in building Digital Public Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence to support the implementation of the JJM in Assam. The workshop was attended by Diganta Kumar Baruah, Special Secretary, PHED, Dharmakanta Mili, Additional Mission Director (N/T), Gayatri Bhattacharyya, Chief Engineer (Water), Nipendra Kumar Sarma, Chief Engineer (Sanitation), Bijit Dutta, Additional Chief Engineer (Technical), PHED, Biraj Baruah, Deputy Mission Director, Nandita Hazarika, Deputy Mission Director and other senior officials of the Public Health Engineering Department. The two-day workshop touched various aspects of JJM and challenges being faced by the Engineers in execution of water supply schemes were discussed and debated. All Engineers leading the divisions, along with other senior engineers from the Circles and zones took part in this Conference. The Conference discussed various topics of interest with regards to proper implementation and management of Water Supply Schemes and Sanitation Initiatives in Assam. Some of the topic included, Executional Challenges in JJM Schemes and Solutions, O&M Policy and Operational Manuals, Poor Performing contractors under JJM, Saturation Planning, Har Ghar Certification, Financial Issues and their resolution, Sustainability of JJM schemes and Way Forward. It may be mentioned here that Jal Jeevan Mission was launched by the Prime Minister of India to ensure supply of safe drinking water to all rural household ensuring minimum 55 liters Per Capita Per Day confirming to BIS: 10500 norms. Assam has already provided 56,98,517 Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) to 79.62 per cent of the rural households in the state. Jal Jeevan Mission Assam, has rolled out a number of initiatives to expedite the process of achieving the target of 100 per cent FHTCs in the rural areas of the state through various support activities like Jal Doot-involvement of school students, Involvement of CLFs/SHGs under ASRLM as field-level support agencies, training of various stakeholder like Water User Committees, and Panchayati Raj Institutions JJM Assam has also signed an MoU with NHM Assam to take help of the ASHAs for spreading the message of sustainability of the schemes and to ensure involvement of the beneficiaries toward the operation and maintenance of the water supply schemes. (ANI)
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