Staff Reporter

Shillong, April 21: Meghalaya has achieved the milestone of almost 50 per cent of rural households having access to tap water connections.

ALSO READ: Meghalaya among 9 states to withdraw general consent to CBI

Informing this today, Public Health Engineering Minister Marcuise N Marak said, “The department has crossed the halfway mark. Our target is to provide functional tap connections to 6.51 lakh households and we have (given tap connections to) 3.10 lakh households, which stands at 47.69 per cent.”

Stating that Meghalaya is the best performing state in terms of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) implementation, Marak said the state has received Rs 400 crore as incentives given by the Centre three consecutive times for best implementation of the JJM in the state.

“We have also got additional funds for this entire year. We have Rs 3,000 plus crores for implementing the JJM…Therefore, in this current financial year we have to do our best to get the household tap connections,” he added.

The minister said there are some hurdles being faced by the department while implementing the JJM due to difficult terrain and road connectivity.

“There are areas where the water source is not there and the department has to go for drilling and in some locations we don’t get the cooperation from the villagers due to which land issues are there,” he said.

Meanwhile, the minister also informed that the department is going for centralization procurement of GI pipes and HDPE plastic pipes to maintain the quality of pipes in the entire state.

“Therefore, the government of Meghalaya has decided to go for a centralization procurement of pipes and now pipes will be given to the contractors so that they don’t have to go individually to the companies and procure the pipes themselves,” he added.