Action plan soon to tackle water woes in summer

Parvathipuram: The Parvathipuram Manyam district administration, with a view to tackle any drinking water problem in the district in the approaching summer, is preparing an action plan. District collector A Shyam Prasad conducted a teleconference with the officials concerned on Sunday regarding the drinking water issues in the coming summer months.

He instructed the officials that no drinking water problem should raise from any part of the district. Taking all the previous experiences into consideration, he said officials should take all the measures to combat the problem, especially in the hilly areas. Flushing of bore wells and other maintenance works had to be taken up well in advance, he said. Noting that under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), many habitations were provided drinking water, he asked the officials to concentrate on the leftover habitations.

The collector informed that if necessary, ITDAs contributes funds up to Rs 1 crore to tackle the issue in agency areas. He said that the summer heat is already being felt and during the months of May and June, water scarcity would be high due to depletion of the groundwater. It would be the more crucial period to plan properly, he added.

The collector instructed the officials to take up summer crash programmeup to March 15. During the period, all the 7,217 handpumps should be repaired, in 15 mandals at a cost of Rs75 lakh from MPP funds as per the orders of the poanchayatraj commissioner, he added. A separate cell should be started to receive information on drinking water problems and to rectify them immediately, he said.

District rural water supply engineering officer O Prabhakar Rao said that a total of 187 habitations were identified as drinking water scarcity-prone habitations for which estimates were prepared for Rs 5.16 crore which could be met from the funds of grama panchayat, mandal parishad and zilla parishad. With the funds of ZP, 73 works costing Rs2.2crores would be taken up, he explained.