Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Monday said Mahoba in Bundelkhand region will soon become the state's first district to get piped drinking water in all its households.
The Chief Minister made the observations while chairing a high-level meeting to review the progress of the Jal Jeevan Mission and Namami Gange project.
"Providing pure drinking water in the dry Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions was a dream that is coming true. Now Mahoba is going to be the first district of the state to have tap water supply in every household," Adityanath said at the meeting.
According to a statement issued here, the CM also directed the officials to achieve the government's target of installing tap water connections to every house in Jhansi, Lalitpur, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Banda, Chitrakoot, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra and the entire Vindhya-Bundelkhand region in the next two months.
Before the start of the Jal Jeevan Mission, only 5.16 lakh families had access to piped drinking water. The figure has now crossed 1.3 crore, with 59.38 lakh connections in the financial year 2022-23 alone, the government said.
"The monthly tap water installations in the state rose from 22,714 in April, 2022 to 12.96 lakh connections in May 2023. Currently, 43,000 taps are being installed every day, which needs to be increased to 50,000 daily," the statement quoted Adityanath as saying.
"To meet the targets, the manpower should be increased and trained plumbers should be posted in every village without delay," the CM added.
Another agenda that was discussed in the meeting is the silt issue in Bundelkhand. The chief minister asked officials of the Irrigation and Water Resources Department to regularly de-silt the reservoirs in the region.
With a total of 1,027 km river stretch of Ganga flowing through the state, Uttar Pradesh has 27 Ganga Janpads and 37 Ganga Towns.
"Additional financial assistance is being provided by the Centre under the Jal Jeevan Mission to improve water quality in affected areas due to the high presence of arsenic, fluoride, salinity, nitrate and iron in the water. Work in these areas needs to be expedited," the CM said.
He also commended the good results achieved through the 'Aviral-Nirmal Maa Ganga' campaign under the Namami Gange project.
Citing the reduced river pollution on the 550-km stretch from Kannauj to Varanasi, the CM asked officials to now pay special attention to the river stretches in Farrukhabad to Prayagraj and Mirzapur to Ghazipur.